1. Moving the Markets
Equities ended a bit lower Tuesday after starting off in positive territory as investors digested news that Apple could owe back taxes in Ireland and continued to focus on what the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates might be as Friday’s key jobs report looms.
Wall Street continues to waver on whether the Fed will hike interest rates for the first time this year, after Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that the case for a rate increase had “strengthened” recently. There is a camp on Wall Street that believes the Fed will move at its Sept. 20-21 meeting if the August jobs report, set for release Friday, comes in strong.
Also weighing on stocks Tuesday, following Monday’s 108-point Dow gain, was the news surrounding iPhone maker Apple, a stock that has a sizable weighting in all three of the major U.S. stock indexes. The news today was that Apple must pay up to $14.5 billion in back taxes to Ireland, the European Union ruled Tuesday after the bloc’s anti-trust arm concluded that the technology firm was given illegal tax benefits over two decades. Ouch! Apple (AAPL) shares ended the day 0.8% lower, to $106 even.
2. ETFs in the Spotlight
In case you missed the announcement and description of this section, you can read it here again.
It features 10 broadly diversified ETFs from my HighVolume list as posted every Monday. Furthermore, they are screened for the lowest MaxDD% number meaning they have been showing better resistance to temporary sell offs than all others over the past year.
Here are the 10 candidates:
The above table simply demonstrates the magnitude with which some of the ETFs are fluctuating in regards to their positions above or below their respective individual trend lines (%M/A). A break below, represented by a negative number, shows weakness, while a break above, represented by a positive percentage, shows strength.
For hundreds of ETF choices, be sure to reference Thursday’s StatSheet.
Year to date, here’s how the above candidates have fared so far:
Again, the first table above shows the position of the various ETFs in relation to their respective long term trend lines (%M/A), while the second one tracks their trailing sell stops in the “Off High” column. The “Action” column will signal a “Sell” once the -7.5% point has been taken out in the “Off High” column.
3. Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)
Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) retreated slightly as uncertainty regarding Fed interest policy reigned supreme.
Here’s how we closed 8/30/2016:
Domestic TTI: +2.87% (last close +2.93%)—Buy signal effective 4/4/2016
International TTI: +4.41% (last close +4.50%)—Buy signal effective 7/19/2016
Disclosure: I am obliged to inform you that I, as well as my advisory clients, own some of the ETFs listed in the above table. Furthermore, they do not represent a specific investment recommendation for you, they merely show which ETFs from the universe I track are falling within the guidelines specified.
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