Full Economic Calendar This Week — Here Are The Highlights

September 13, 2004
Chris Curran

Â Equities
continued the rally which started roughly 4 weeks ago, and despite
further sales warnings, Chip shares finally joined the broader market in the
advance.Â On Wednesday, the Semiconductor Index recorded a new low for the year,
but rallied by about 9% in the last 2 days of the week.Â Bullish comments
from Nokia early
Thursday were cited for the dramatic turnaround, and this news likely caught
many short-sellers off guard, especially with how many bearish traders may have
been pressing their bets after Intel’s warning last week.Â Beyond Tech, strength
was seen in most other sectors, and another positive catalyst was overall
breadth, which was finally confirmed by slightly expanding volume.Â But overall,
the volume figures were still nothing to write home about.

The
December SP 500 futures closed out the week with a gain of +9.50 points to post
its 5th straight weekly gain, while the Dow futures added +30 points and also
posted its 5th straight gain.Â On a weekly basis, the ES has penetrated the its
upper down channel line, but still has a ways to go up to 1144 to post a higher
high.Â Looking at the daily chart, the contract closed at the week’s high and
just under its 78.6% Fib retracement of the June/August down move. The YM is
lagging a bit here and wasn’t able to settle above weekly resistance, but is
still holding its 200-day MA support. In the small-caps, the ER2 closed at the
week’s high, through its 200-day MA, and also broke weekly resistance.

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

December
bonds reversed off of the 10-week MA, and continue to trade in a range between
109.20 and 112.
The Semiconductor Index (SOX) finished strong in the face of bad news and broke
both its weekly and daily falling wedges.Â The Banking Index (BKX) has completed
both weekly and daily bearish Gartley patterns, giving a 1st target of 95.63.Â

Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â

The action
seen in the equity markets last week was constructive.Â Bad news was unable to
send the broader markets lower, while positive news was rewarded for a change.Â
Another positive factor to keep an eye on has been the continued strength in
industrial-type names, which are highly leveraged to the economy.Â An example of
this noteworthy strength was GE, which was able to break out and close at a new
52-week high.Â While the slower growth scenario I mentioned a number of weeks
back will likely unfold with regard to the economy, the major indexes so far
have backed and filled nicely, and are allowing a lot of that slower growth to
already be reflected in stock prices.

Looking
ahead this week, the economic calendar is fairly full with Retail Sales on
Tuesday, the CPI on Wednesday, Philly Fed on Thursday, and the Preliminary
Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index on Friday.Â Friday is also “quadruple
witching” expiration of options and futures, and the best action we’ve seen
during expiration week has been on Wednesday.