Stock market.
“All-time highs?”
Well, it depends on what you’re looking at.
Any index containing Alphabet (formerly Google
GOOG
AMZN
AAPL
MSFT
NVDA
DIA
Sadly, other major measures of stock market performance are not keeping up with the Fabulous 5. Shareholders who’ve considered the long-term benefits of diversification among different types of sectors are dealing with significant underperformance vis a vis the tech group. Maybe it’s temporary, who knows?
Let’s take a look:
The Nasdaq 100 daily price chart looks like this:
Nasdaq 100 daily price chart, 2 6 24.
It’s a beautiful thing if you’re holding shares in the 5 stocks with the huge market capitalizations that pump this higher and higher. The nearly straight-up move off of the October lows continues with the price now holding up above the 17572 level.
Above the 50-day moving average (the blue line) and above the 200-day moving average (the red line), it’s an astonishing up trend to behold. The relative strength index may be indicating an issue now that it’s negatively diverging from price.
The Dow Jones Utility Average daily price chart is here:
Dow Jones Utility Average daily price chart, 2 6 24.
Just a little bit of a difference from the Nasdaq 100. The average represents the big cap utility stocks including American Electric
AEP
NEE
Interest rate sensitive because of the higher dividends they pay and because of generally heavier debt loads, this sector is not making new highs. It’s up from October lows but that rally ended in mid-December and the utilities are parked now below the 2 moving averages.
Here’s the Dow Jones Transportation Average daily price chart.
Dow Jones Transportation Average, 2 6 24.
Not as bad as the utilities but there are no all time highs here either. The transports bottomed in late October and participated in the wider market rally through November and December 2023 but ran into resistance at the 16200 level.
It dipped in January 2024 and is now retesting that area above 16000 where sellers seem to emerge in numbers.
The iShares Russell 2000 ETF daily price chart looks like this:
iShares Russell 2000 ETF daily price chart, 2 6 24.
The small caps soared from late October to late December and exceeded the 2023 high price but failed to score a new all-time high. Now that 2024 has arrived, the shares are unable to manage another such rally to above $205, even as the Nasdaq 100 roars ahead.
The ETF has pulled back to the up trending 50-day moving average and is finding buyers. It remains above the 200-day moving average as well.
iShares China Large Cap ETF daily price chart is here:
iShares China Large-Cap ETF daily price chart.
It’s almost the upside-down version of the Nasdaq 100. China stocks just kept dropping from the late July 2023 high to the January 2024 low near $21. Today’s action on heavy volume suggests buyers may believe the ETF is at or near a low, finally. Price climbed back to just above the down trending 50-day moving average.
