Courtesy of Blain.
Bulls continue to put relentless pressure on the bears here in March. The S&P 500 gained 1.64% while the NASDAQ rallied 1.85% – both indexes shot up at the open and just added to that all session. Apparently what was deemed as “not as much as we wanted” out of the European Central Bank Thursday was thought of in a better light Friday.
“The monetary policy tools we believe are effective are being expanded and the monetary policy tools we don’t believe to work are being limited,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities.
“I think with oil and rethinking (ECB President) Mario Draghi’s powerful message that he sent to the markets, because he did do more than we were expecting … I think that rethinking of the actions is going to lead the market higher along with higher oil prices,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial.
The S&P 500 has essentially been above our blue trendline for a week and a half and is now pressing above the 200 day moving average. The NASDAQ still has more work to do as it’s below both the 100 and 200 day moving averages but likewise has spent much of the past week and a half over our blue trendline.
The NYSE McClellan Oscillator has been in a range of “only seen twice in 18 years” overbought to “extreme” overbought lately. Again, no break for the bears here at all. Usually a reading in the +60s means a bit of a pullback is coming soon. Not this week.
After reacting badly yesterday to the “disappointing” comments by the head of the ECB, today European markets rocketed back up.
European financials also turned and burned back up – here is the chart of one of the massive banks in Germany (DB).
Another day of significant moves out of the energy sector – see Andarko Petroleum (APC), Consol Energy (CNX), and Devon Energy (DVN).
Ulta Salon Cosmetics & Fragrance (ULTA) soared after the cosmetics retailer late Thursday delivered quarterly earnings and guidance that topped Wall Street’s expectations. J.P. Morgan Chase raised its price target for the stock to $231 from $215.
Bojangles (BOJA) surged after quarterly results late Thursday.
The company said it had net income of 21 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to 22 cents per share. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts was for earnings of 19 cents per share. The chicken and biscuits restaurant operator posted revenue of $128.8 million in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Analysts expected $128.5 million.
Have a good weekend and we’ll see if the bears can put the fire out on their singed fur next week!
