A Time to Short the SPDR S&P Retail ETF

Kudos to outdoor retailer REI for actually giving its employees time off on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. REI created an #optoutside campaign to encourage fellow enthusiasts to join vacationing employees outdoors, far away from the Black Friday shopping madness that has become quite the bewildering American consumerist tradition. Back on the asphalt, results … Read more

T2108 Update (November 17, 2015) – The S&P 500 Fails A Key Test

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

T2108 Update (November 12, 2015) – Stock Market Weakness Confirmed

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

T2108 Update (October 14, 2015) – Retail Fails the Test As the S&P 500 Mildly Stares At Its Own

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

A Hard Lesson in Indexing: zulily Versus Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR ETF

I have already written a mea culpa on zulily, Inc. (ZU). However, I feel that my trade on this stock was so bad, it deserves a SECOND one… especially since as I write, the stock is down about 8% in what looks like continuation selling from November’s post-earnings breakdown and gap down. The stock is … Read more

Sifting Through the Rubble of Retail High-Flyers for Potential Trades – Long and Short

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on August 6, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) The HOLDRS Retail ETF (RTH) made new all-time highs in late July, and the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) has remained in a trading range since failing a retest of its … Read more

Betting On Best Buy’s Post-Earnings Potential

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 26, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) According to ETF Channel, Best Buy (BBY) is the second largest holding of the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT). Yet, BBY is greatly underperforming this retail ETF. While XRT is at … Read more

Retail ETF (XRT) Sprints Toward All-Time Highs…And A New Bull Market?!

I was very skeptical of Bernie Schaeffer’s choice of XRT, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF, as one of his top three recommendations in late November. He chose XRT as a contrarian play in the face of heavy skepticism about the health of the consumer. XRT slogged and churned for over two months before breaking out … Read more

The Consumer Remains Bullish on Spending, Not On Mutual Funds

Major resistance has broken and trends are turning back up on the major indices, so it is time to consider more seriously the prospect of the market printing fresh highs on the year sooner than later. Yesterday, I examined Cummins (CMI) as one of several stocks that may indicate the market has sufficient buying power … Read more

Market Sentiment Indicators Remain Mixed

“Mish” posted the latest chart from the Investor’s Intelligence Survey, and it shows that bulls are back up to 50% and bears have hit a new low for the year at 16%. (You can directly access two years of data using the chart tool at Schaeffer’s Investment Research). He also noted that bears have only … Read more