The good news today is that the S&P 500 is working on two positive days in a row. It's been about two weeks since that last occurred and it wasn't particularly impressive. The bad news is that today's follow-through isn't very impressive either.
Breadth is fairly solid with about 3,900 gainers to 2,300 decliners and the big-cap technology names such as Alphabet (GOOGL) , Netflix (NFLX) and Facebook (FB) are attracting some interest, but Apple (AAPL) has faded and Intel INTC is a major problem. (Alphabet, Facebook and Apple are part of TheStreet's Action Alerts PLUS portfolio.)
Oil is doing well on inventory numbers and steel names are up for a second day, but biotechnology is struggling again. The biggest challenge for traders is finding new themes that have some momentum.
Today, I've been trading Mimecast (MIME) , which broke to new highs out of a nice base, and Emerge Energy (EMES) still looks good on strong oil.
One name I'm watching more closely is Acacia Communications (ACIA) . This was a huge winner in July and August and I've been waiting for it to form new support after its recent secondary offering, priced at $100.
Last quarter, the big-cap stock that probably had the best earnings report was Facebook. Not only did the company beat but at an accelerated rate. The stock hasn't done a whole lot since then, but the chart is developing well and I'm inclined to build a position into the anticipation in front of its next report, which is due on the afternoon of Nov. 2.
