Stocks Drive To All-Time Highs Again
Zacks Investment Research | Oct 03, 2017 09:15PM ET
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The market enjoyed more good news on Tuesday as this data-heavy week continues. U.S. new vehicle sales were strong in September due to the replacement of damaged cars during the recent hurricanes. This came a day after the ISM Manufacturing Index registered its best reading (60.8) in more than a decade. Such solid reports amid optimism over tax reform cleared the way for a new round of all-time highs.
The Dow put together its fifth day of gains with an increase of 0.37% to 22,641.7. The NASDAQ was up 0.23% to 6531.7 and the S&P climbed 0.22% to 2534.6. The two latter indices have a six-session winning streak, and all three reached new all-time highs for the second consecutive session. The Russell 2000 continued moving higher as well, rising 0.17% to a new record of nearly 1512.
“Market continued their bullish run today, with indices hitting fresh highs across the board,” said Jeremy in Counterstrike. “There seems to be no stopping the market as every day is met with fresh buying. Today was the 44th all-time high for the Dow this year.”
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In the portfolios, Surprise Trader cashed in a double-digit winner, while Stocks Under $10 added a company that’s gaining ground in the burgeoning autonomous driving space. Also, TAZR Trader added more shares of an existing position. Check out more specifics in the highlights section below, along with some analysis from other services.
Today's Portfolio Highlights:
Surprise Trader: Owens Corning (OC) has been in the portfolio less than three months now…and it’s been a big success. In late July, the building materials company reported another strong quarter with better-than-expected results on the top and bottom lines. Today, Eric decided to get out of the name and bank a nice 20.6% profit.
Stocks Under $10: Autonomous driving may not be commonplace right now, but the idea is getting hotter and hotter. Brian Bolan is a big believer in its future, so today he picked up Iteris (ITI) for the portfolio. The company is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) leading provider of outdoor vision systems and sensors that optimize the flow of traffic and enhance driver safety. The editor wouldn’t be surprised if this company is a double-digit winner by the end of the year. In fact, he sees ITI becoming one of the ‘big three’ in the portfolio in about a year’s time. Learn a lot more about this new addition in the full write up.
TAZR Trader: Kevin planned to buy more shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) after a research analyst last week reported that the company significantly improved its competitive position in GPUs. But just this morning, AMD had a new product announcement, which forced the editor to make the move today and add to the position. You may remember that Kevin considers AMD to be a great substitute to the pricey (and possibly overvalued) NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA). Read the complete commentary for more on this move and AMD’s new product announcement.
Large-Cap Trader: "The two largest Detroit automakers reported much stronger than expected US new car sales in September over the year earlier period as replacement demand increased.
"A string of national disasters (hurricanes in Houston and Florida) helped boost sales at a time when the U.S. industry is facing its weakest year since the great recession.
"Tack on the great manufacturing PMIs for the USA. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow effort has third quarter U.S. GDP growth at +2.7%. That’s a big improvement from the pessimism early on." -- John Blank
Momentum Trader: "Today the S&P 500 hit the second price target from the July to August Fib setup I’ve been working off for the last few weeks. This latest run of five straight days of buying pressure could be the start of something epic. After hitting 2,533, the 50% extension, the next step is the 76.4% up at 2,555. That’s a mere 21 handless off today’s closing price, less than a one percent move.
"We’re in a nice technical pattern here where the 50-day moving average sits down at 2,474.44 and the upside resistance here is all pretty much theoretical. That’s the tough part about guessing where these breakouts may run out of steam. Since the index has never traded up at this level, you really don’t know where the sellers are likely to step in. It’s much easier to find areas of support and resistance when the index has been there before.
"What I can tell you about this current rally is it’s likely to continue as long as we’ve got hope for tax reform and we don’t get any overly hawkish rhetoric out of the Fed." -- Dave Bartosiak
Have a Good Evening,
Jim Giaquinto
One More Thing...
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