Special Bulletin: January 31, 2017

The markets were bifurcated today. In other words, they had a split personality. The Dow Industrial, Transportation & Semi-conductor indexes fell; the S&P Small Cap 600, Russell and Utility indexes rose; while the Nasdaq & S&P 500 indexes were essentially flat. This illustrates very well the “cross-currents” that have been hounding the markets for most of January.

However, tomorrow (Feb 1st) should be a better day and quite possibly a big day in the markets for 2 reasons.

First, after the markets close today Apple Inc (AAPL) released a good earnings report. The effect of their solid quarter will set the tone for early trading tomorrow and will have wide reaching implications throughout the tech sector.

Second, Wednesday is the first day of a new month and as such will experience a significant capital inflow into stocks with the new month investment demand created by large pensions and employer 401K plan managers (among other participants) putting those billions to work.

Our official Current Market Outlook is still at a “green light”.

With the inauguration having gone smoothly and many companies reporting solid, even better than expected, earnings releases so far this quarter, the markets trend is still up. Amazon & Facebook are slated to release their results later this week and will be another market tell.

So far so good for the new year and the new Administration. However, there is one wrinkle: the number of distribution days (days of professional selling) over the past 5 weeks is uncomfortably high. It’s not enough to kill a stock market rally yet, but it’s getting closer. But take heart: this technical factor can improve if the market resumes moving higher in the very near future.

Please check back for future updates to stay on top of how the market reacts to new announcements.

Have a Triumphant day! ®