ChartSmarter Tuesday Game Plan 1/7/14

Markets kicked off a new week attempting to overcome some mid day weakness to no avail. The Nasdaq took the worst of it early on down almost .7% late morning. It fell .4%Much was most likely due to the index’s largest component AAPL, making up 6.6% of the benchmark, which staged a decent reversal Monday recovering 10 handles from its lows. FB, the 6th biggest name in the tech index, put up a stellar session up almost 5%. Not surprisingly the Nasdaq bounced off the round 4100 level. It does make it 3 down days in a row for the Nasdaq which was not common at all in 2013, doing so just 8 times. On those 8 occasions the tech index fell for a fourth consecutive day just twice, in mid August and late June. None lasted five. Let’s see what Tuesday brings. The late afternoon sell offs are indicative of bearish behavior. Am I calling for an outright bear, no but making forecasts is fruitless. Pay attention to the present and play your positions accordingly. Pouring over hundreds of charts this weekend, there does seem to be some rotation beginning into the retail groups. Names like VFC PVH BBBY all near all time highs, although each name was lower Monday. Of course some other groups look to be ailing. There is some bifurcation going on in the insurer space with names like ACGL CB VR not behaving. Auto stocks have been deflating a bit. Names like TRW, GM Friday, and of course F which slumped more than 6% after a year end update 12/18 are not helping the group. Perhaps the overall market needs a bit of an alignment, pun intended, as well. Lets see if this market is running on fumes.