The bears were hopeful this morning that the market would take a rest following headlines of increased trade tensions between the U.S. and China. It was a good excuse for much needed consolidation but the buyers refuse to rest. While the senior indices are flat, money flowed into small caps. The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) is trading up over 1%. Breadth is running negative with around 3400 gainers to 3800 decliners. New 12-month highs have declined to around 260 from over 700 earlier this week.
The pockets of speculative trading continue to be quite strong and that is part of the reason for the outperformance in small caps. I 'm seeing quite a few biotechnology names on the most active list. One name I added in the group today is Horizon Therapeutics (HZNP) . HZNP priced a secondary at $71 and is trading very strong.
Precious metals are the laggards today. After a huge spike in the metals, the miners lagged and now some profit-taking is kicking in. I'm looking for the sector to regroup and for another push but it looks like gold and silver have become overheated and need some time to consolidate and set up again.
This market continues to be highly frustrated for the market timing bears that can't seem to catch even minor weakness. The S&P 500 has had a steady uptrend all week and the pullback today is just 0.1% at the moment. It is just a suboptimal trade especially when individual stock picking continues to be so robust.
There are some concerns in the price action but dip buyers keep stepping up very quickly. I'm finding it more difficult to add new positions but, more often than not, I tend to regret some of the selling I've been doing.
Reactive bulls are still topping anticipatory bears.
