It’s a great day for the market, but it’s only a day, and the market hasn’t closed. You can believe the bears, curmudgeons and others that want to see greater misery will try to jawbone the market lower.

How oversold is the stock market?

There are several names up significantly, which have only made a dent in the overall paper losses:

• Children’s Place (PLCE) +24%
• Freeport-McMorRan (FCX) +24%
• United Rentals (URI) +23%

Nonetheless, market breadth is impressive, and encouraging.  What stands out as a glaring reminder of the depths of selling, however is there is only one stock this afternoon changing hands at a new 52-week high on the New York Stock Exchange.

Market Breadth	NYSE	NASDAQ
Advancing	2,809	2,800
Declining	194	426
Unchanged	12	35
Total	3,015	3,261
52 Week High	1	7
52 Week Low	45	74
Advancing	2.83B	1.50B
Declining	205.72M	357.31M
Unchanged	585,082	3.95M
Total	3.03B	1.86B

Volume

NASDAQ

• 2.4 billion up volume
• 1.8 billion down volume

New Lows

NYSE 805 last week high day 2,330

NASDAQ 783 last week high 1,937

Message of Market

The S&P 500 is being paced by the biggest losers, which are Energy, Industrials and Materials.  Some of this isn’t just extreme oversold bounces.  There are names in the mix like Whirlpool (WHR) and Sherwin Williams (SHW) that should benefit from the housing boom, which should slow but remain a juggernaut driven but household formations. 

Meanwhile, the defensive sectors Utilities and Real Estate continue to trail, which is a good sign.

S&P 500 Index	+8.10%
Communication Services (XLC)	+5.28%
Consumer Discretionary (XLY)	+8.40%
Consumer Staples (XLP)	+4.61%
Energy (XLE)	+12.77%
Financials (XLF)	+11.21%
Health Care (XLV)	+6.58%
Industrials (XLI)	+10.68%
Materials (XLB)	+11.60%
Real Estate (XLRE)	+6.09%
Technology (XLK)	+9.11%
Utilities (XLU)	+7.59%

Existing Home Sales

Sales of previously owned houses surged 6.5% month to month, coming in at an annualized rate of 5.77 million, well above consensus of 5.50 million.  Last August, I saw the start of a 2020 housing boom, and I think it will resume. There will be stocks that benefit well beyond the broad market performance.

United States Existing Home Sales

 

Comments

We put our house on the market on March 2 and now 3 weeks later we have not had a single person come to see it yet. It is home selling season here on Cape Cod. We will be a canary in the housing it We put our house on the market on March 2 and now 3 weeks later we have not had a single person come to see it yet. It is home selling season here on Cape Cod. We will be a canary in the housing market. Ah, price discovery! Dick Nicholson on 3/24/2020 2:28:04 PM

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