The market couldn’t seem to make up its mind on which direction it wanted to go on Monday. The indices were all in the red in the morning before moving in to positive territory near lunchtime. They stayed in positive territory most of the afternoon before a spat of selling took three of the four back in to negative territory.
The Dow finished with a gain of 0.06% and was the lone index to finish in the black. The Russell took the biggest loss at 0.10%, so as you can see there wasn’t much movement at all. The Nasdaq fell 0.06% on the day and the S&P dropped 0.01%.
[hana-code-insert name=’adsense-article’ /]Despite the majority of the indices moving lower, the majority of the sectors moved higher on Monday.Six of the 10 moved higher while four moved lower.
The consumer staples sector led the way with a gain of 0.40% and it was followed by the consumer discretionary sector which moved up 0.35%.
The healthcare sector was the worst performer with a loss of 0.53% and it was followed by the communication services sector which dropped 0.36%.
My scans produced yet another negative result on Monday with 15 names on the bearish list and five names on the bullish side.
In the last 16 trading days the scans have been negative 15 times and neutral on one occasion.
The barometer continued to tread water in the -13 range. Last night’s reading was -13.1 and the two previous readings were -13.3 and -13.2.
I didn’t really like the trade setup for any of the stocks on either list last night so I went to a different scan, the weekly bullish scan that uses the same criteria as the daily ones, only with weekly indicators. Upland Software (Nasdaq: UPLD) has great fundamental ratings with an EPS rating of 99 and an SMR rating of an A.
The weekly chart shows how the weekly stochastic readings are in oversold territory but made a bullish crossover last week. The stock has seen a trend channel form with the stock hitting the lower rail in the last few weeks. We also see that the 104-week (two year) moving average is just below the lower rail, giving the stock two layers of support.
Buy to open the November 35-strike calls on UPLD at $3.80 or better. These options expire on November 15. In order for these options to double the stock will need to reach $42.60. That price level is barely half way up the channel so I think it can reach that price with very little resistance. I suggest a target gain of 100% with a stop at $34.75.
— Rick Pendergraft
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