The markets struggled to gain traction today as the bank stocks and oil held us back. The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM ) was the weakest of the group today losing 2.22%. The Nasdaq 100 lost 72 points (-1.58%) and the S&P 500 lost 29 points down 1.55%. The old saying "where the banks go so does the S&P" held true today. The reason for this is that over 30% of the S&P is weighted to the banking stocks. Goldman Sachs (GS ) and Bank of America (BAC ) stick out as some of the weak ones today as they lost 3.66% and 4.42% respectively.
Hurt by falling commodity prices and poor earnings the rail companies continue to struggle. Following a miss on earnings Kansas City Southern (KSU ) continued its weakness today losing 3.28%. Recent downgrades likely contributed to the decline as well. While today's decline doesn't push it to new lows, the selling pressure and volume were above average. Other rails in the space lost ground today as well. CSX Corp (CSX ) lost 2.01% and Union Pacific (UNP ) lost 1.69%.
Speaking of falling oil prices, Crude Oil tumbled today giving back almost all of Fridays gains. Crude closed lower by 5.8% to $30.34 per barrel. This sent US Oil Fund ETF (USO ) down 7.87% with well above average volume. SPDR Oil and Gas Exploring ETF (XOP ) didn't fare much better with a 7.25% loss on the day. Technical traders will watch closely to see if the recent low is broken in the short term.
It wasn't all bad news today though as McDonald's (MCD ) was the best-performing Dow component following this morning's earnings. The fast food chain beat expectations across the board and said it expects continued positive top-line momentum across all segments this year. The company also stated that its recent change to offer breakfast foods all day has been a great benefit to the company's strength. Although it wasn't a huge up day McDonalds was still able to gain 0.68%
Where do we go from here? Well a pullback in the short term is welcome by most traders. Most traders will think of it as the market relaxing after such a strong pop. All eyes will be on the recent lows. If the pullback stays above it then buyers will see it as an opportunity. Anything below the recent market lows could spell trouble for the longs.
