The Post-FOMC Period Looks Bearish

by John Lansing | October 24, 2012 10:53 am

Today is FOMC day, and to add some color on sectors and subsectors from the last Fed Open Market Committee meeting — when “QE3-Unlimited” was announced — the S&P 500 has now dropped just over 3%.

Click to EnlargeSPY 140 is the support, and SPY 143 is the resistance (see chart). I imagine that for the next couple days, we’re going to ping-pong between these two areas. It’s one of those things where the previous support of 143 now becomes resistance, and the old support of 140 (in terms of SPDRs) is still support — until it’s not. It might take one to three days for it to break; you never really know.

So many sectors, subsectors, averages and commodities are currently underperforming from the day Ben Bernanke announced his QE3 plans. With the global economy now facing macro headwinds and so many countries slipping into a recession, he hoped to combat deflation, but the success of this master plan is still an unknown to some extent.

Here’s how some notable names have performed since the last FOMC meeting:

• Claymore/MAC Global Solar Index ETF (NYSE:TAN[1]): Down 13.53%
• W&T Offshore (NYSE:WTI[2]): Down 11.74%
• PHLX Semiconductor (NASDAQ:SOX[3]): Down 7.89%
• iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV[4]): Down 4.66%
• Dow Jones U.S. Chemical Index: Down 4.19%
•  PowerShares QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ[5]): Down 4.14%
• PHLX Oil Service Sector (NASDAQ:OSX[6]): Down 4.36%
• iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate ETF (NYSE:IYR[7]): Down 3.61%
• Fidelity NASDAQ Composite Index ETF (NASDAQ:ONEQ): Down 3.31%
• iShares S&P SmallCap 600 Index (NYSE:IJR[8]): Down 4.03%
•  Market Vectors Steel ETF (NYSE:SLX[9]): Down 2.20%
• iShares Russell 2000 Index (NYSE:IWM[10]): Down 3.22%
• Materials Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLB[11]): Down 2.08%
• NYSEARCA Biotech Index: Down 1.47%
  

While QE3’s ultimate impact is yet unknown, one thing is perfectly clear. From the day it was announced, nearly every asset class continues to roll over. The technicals don’t look good, either. We’ll see what happens later today — and in the coming weeks.

John Lansing tracks the charts all day and offers expert technical analysis in his day trading, options and trading services: Power Trading at the Open, Parabolic Options and Trending123.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/10/the-post-fomc-period-looks-bearish/

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