It appears there's no stopping this market. Yesterday the market started with some mild weakness only to turn positive by mid-morning, then gain steam in the afternoon. The S&P 500 closed up 1.1%, adding 14.37 points to close over the key 1300 level at 1308.04. The Nasdaq Composite added over 41 points, or 1.5% to close at 2769.71.
The S&P 500 has traded in steady parallel upward channel since the December 19 lows. And while volume has not exceeded the 4 billion share mark on any trading day since that low, volume on up days continues to better downside volume.
The advance has left many bears and under-invested bulls puzzled as the market has had traded up in 9 of the 11 tradings days in 2012. The Euro zone continues to struggle with sovereign debt troubles with Greece seemingly on the brink of default, and Iran has not moved away from its threat to close the Straits of Hormuz. The wall of worry is there, and the market is making a steady climb.
Braskem (BAK), mentioned in January 13th setups, made a nice move yesterday adding $1.39 up 9.25%. The specialty chemicals group has been strong so far this year with another highlighted setup from the group, Huntsman (HUN), rebounding 3.3% on higher than average volume.
At 8:30 AM, weekly jobless claims were reported down 50K to 352,000. That number announced by Rick Santelli on CNBC was followed by him saying that he doubts that any of the data points being released are actually true. True or not, pre-market futures are pointing to another higher opening with the S&P 500 indicator pointing to +3 points.
Here a few stocks I'm watching for today. ALWAYS use stops to limit potential losses.
Click on charts to enlarge:
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