Monday's biggest losers were, you guessed it, found in the oil patch. Names like Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Marathon Oil (MRO) and Transocean (RIG) where slammed for between 5% and 8.5%. In fact, 14 of the top 20 worst performing stocks in the S&P 500 Monday were oil and gas names; 2015 has been a year every energy investor would like to leave in the rearview mirror.
Just as energy continues to struggle, names like Action Alerts PLUS portfolio holdings Alphabet (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB), and Growth Seeker portfolio holding Amazon.com (AMZN), continue to build on already impressive year-to-date gains. In this market of haves and have-nots, stocks like AMZN and GOOGL continue to appear unstoppable. This may change in the New Year, but as a rule of thumb, there's no reason to get too negative on a name as long as it continues to find support near its 50-day simple moving average.
Gold futures slid roughly eight handles on Monday. My view here continues to be that choppy and directionless trading should keep the bulk of participants on the sidelines. The soonest I'd consider taking a stab long is once price is holding above $1080.
Any trading or volume profile related questions can be posted in the comments section below, emailed to me at parkcityyeti@gmail.com or posted to my twitter feed @ByrneRWS.
