During Friday's Mad Money program Jim Cramer outlined what stocks he was watching this week. On Tuesday banks begin reporting with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup (C) . Cramer said he wants to hear whether these banks can make money given low interest rates and increased scrutiny from Washington.
Let's check out the charts of these two money center giants.
JPMorgan Chase
In the daily bar chart of JPM, we can see that the shares have been trading sideways for several months around the $100 level. Prices have crossed above and below the 50-day moving average line several times but remain below the declining 200-day moving average line.Trading volume was very heavy from February through July and the On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line shows a number of up and down swings since March but little in the way of a sustained move.
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) oscillator has been hugging the zero line since July and tells us there is little strength behind any of the "jiggles".



Citigroup



Bottom-Line Strategy
Ahead of their earnings, the charts of JPM and C are not all that glowing. I do not know if earnings will be disappointing and these stocks move lower, but the conditions for a rally are absent right now.
(JPMorgan Chase is a holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS member club. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells JPM? Learn more now.)