Indexes Hold Up Ahead Of Retail Earnings; Powell Speech: CCJ, RCL, TFPM In Focus

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0:25Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Stock Market Today. For Monday, August 18th. I'm Alexis Garcia. And if you're wondering, hey, that's not Ali Coram. She's out on maternity leave. We're so excited for her and we're going to miss her. But rest assured, you're in good hands. And two of those hands that are here to help me break down all that you need to know about today's market action is our IBD markets writer, Ken Shreve. Ken, How's it going? Two hands ready to go. Two hands. So, Ken, what do you have on the plate for us today? Because it seems like a lot of investors are waiting really for Jerome Powell and Jackson Hole Comets at the end of the week.

1:13So what do you have for us? Well, you're right, Alexis. Kind of a quiet week in terms of earnings. We are going to start to see a lot of retail earnings reports, you know, come in this week. And then Jackson Hole is going to be a big headline at the end of the week on Friday when Jerome Powell speaks. So the market itself still looks quite good. Index is holding up near highs, really not wanting to go down, holding above short-term moving averages. So for stocks, let's take a look at Cameco, CCJ. This is a uranium miner looking pretty good fundamentally and technically. in the cruise line space.

1:53Let's take a look at Royal Caribbean, RCL. And then finally, gold stocks, kind of a mixed bag here, but let's take a look at triple flag precious metals, TFPM. All right, Ken, sounds good. Let me share my screen here and we can rifle through the indexes. Starting with the S &P 500, you can see closing essentially flat for the day up fractionally. Let's look at the NASDAQ composite. That index, again, up fractionally on the day. We could take a look at Dow Jones industrial average. That went down slightly today. And small caps, Ken, we've seen this market rotation here leading the day today up about four-tenths of a percent.

2:41So talk to me about the market action, because if you caught Friday's extended version. Mike Webster went through what he thinks is going on and kind of raising the flag a little bit in terms of, you know, it looks like maybe the market's running out of gas. Is there cause for concern? But walk me through the market action today. And, you know, is there a cause for concern or what are you seeing? Well, I think, you know, Mike Webster, our senior market strategist on IBD Live, just said, you know, he's been talking about some of the stalling action that we've seen on the NASDAQ composite, probably more so on the NASDAQ than the S &P 500.

3:21But you can see just times when the NASDAQ eventually went over that 21 ,000 level for the first time, it kind of reversed lower. Yeah. And then it gapped below its 21-day moving average. And it's been coming higher. But there have been several instances where the NASDAQ has opened strong and then kind of faded into the close. So he's acknowledging some stalling type action in the NASDAQ. But I also know he's also looking at a lot of leading stocks out there that are still holding up well. So we're seeing some yellow flags. But when you look at just the price and volume chart, Alexis, of the NASDAQ chart, you can see it's still holding comfortably above its 10-day moving average, It's 21-day moving average.

4:11So indexes are still showing a lot of strength. Pull up the Russell 2000, if you don't mind, either IWM. I don't mind at all. Yeah. Yeah. So the Russell 2000 is very interesting because this index had a bona fide breakout last week. I mean, just a really, really strong move up towards that 226 high. And then it followed through the very next day. I particularly like what the Russell 2000 has been doing over the past three days. Notice how it's been holding on to the bulk of those gains over the past two days, trading very tightly, showing a lot of strength and support. So really, you know, all the indexes are still showing a lot of strength and support out there.

4:58Even the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it took that one a while to hit an all-time high. It did so Friday. It wasn't such a great day for the Dow because it even though it was up sharply earlier in the day, it did give back a lot of those a lot of those gains. But nonetheless, it was it was an all time high for the Dow on on Friday. And then with the S &P 500 looks looks very similar to the to the Nasdaq composite here. These are your two leading indexes that are just perched near all-time highs and really showing a lot of strength, like I said, above their short-term moving averages. So even though we're near the end of second quarter earnings season, we are at a time where we're going to hear from Walmart and Target this week, TJX companies and raw stores in the discount space.

5:52So we'll get more headlines this week. And then, of course, the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium is Friday. That's an annual event that the Fed chairman or chairwoman, whoever it is, on any given year, they'll go and give their talk on monetary policy, maybe get some more insights on interest rates. The market is still debating how many rate cuts there are going to be this year. The Fed is still grappling with the inflation, a softening jobs market. So still a lot of questions out there, but the market itself is really holding quite well here. Well, Ken, thanks so much for that analysis. And let's take a look at sector ETF here, XRT.

6:39That's the Spider S &P Retail ETF. And as you mentioned, a lot of retail earnings this week. This went up about nine-tenths of a percent today. We see that it's in that consolidation. Looked like it peaked above that buy point. But what are your thoughts here with retail and what are you expecting to hear this week? Well, you know, I thought it's interesting looking at XRT because this is just a really a strong technical picture, just like the broad market. You can see a real strong move for two days last week when it went across that recent high of 60, excuse me, 83, 32. And then for the past three days, it's just kind of been sitting, sitting tight and holding strong here.

7:23So, you know, still still concerns out there about the economy. But when you just look at the number of retail stocks that are acting pretty well here, XRT, I think, is kind of symbolic of the strength in a lot of these these retail stocks. So even though there are concerns about inflation and possibly a slowdown later this year, you're seeing a lot of retail stocks holding up well. So I suspect we'll hear pretty good things. I'm not sure that the outlooks over the next couple of quarters are going to be filled with a lot of clear visibility. I'm sure companies will be talking about tariffs and this and that.

8:06But it's been a great second quarter earnings season so far. I expect the retailers will be singing a pretty bullish tune like the other companies have that have reported in recent weeks. Savvy investors understand consistent growth is built on scale, resilience and trust. For more than 60 years, Medline has proven this, driven by an unrelenting commitment to their customers. Today, Medline is proudly NASDAQ-listed and is the largest provider of medical surgical products and supply chain solutions serving all points of care. With a focus on what healthcare needs next, Medline strives to make healthcare run better.

8:43See how Medline is woven throughout healthcare and learn more at Medline.com. All right, Ken. Well, let's move on and take a look at some individual stocks, starting with Camco here. And we see we have a 1.6 percent gain today, a nice move finishing in the upper range of that trading zone there. And, you know, again, really solid above the 21 day line and the 10 day simple moving average. Yes. So with with with Cameco, this is just a very liquid institutional quality stock. They're a uranium miner, beautiful breakout from a cup base over the 60 level. And then this was just really a classic first test of the 50-day moving average.

9:36Cameco eventually, you know, it came down to the 70 level, hit that low of 70, was that 70? 70.82. I think 70, 82. Yeah. Closed up off its lows. And but really is making a good case for support at the at the 50 day moving average. So anytime a stock breaks out of a base, pulls down to that 50 day line and makes a convincing case for support. We look at the stock as as actionable. And that's the same on the weekly chart here, too. If you look at a weekly for Cameco, this is just a beautiful, tight trading near the 10 week line. So, again, the market is acting well. You're seeing a lot of good setups like this one.

10:18Again, a beautiful move when it initially broke out over that 60 level. And this is just a nice test of the 10-week moving average on the weekly chart. But you've got a very, very strong relative strength line on the daily chart up near highs and also on the weekly chart as well. So Cameco's got a lot of positive qualities. The composite rating of 99 tells you right away that you're dealing with a company with pretty good earnings and sales. And that is certainly the case over the past three quarters with CCJ. Robust earnings and revenue increases over the past three quarters. So fundamentals and technicals align here.

11:00That's what we like to see. Does the volume here concern you at all? Ken, it seems like it's dried up a bit compared to when that sell-off happened back in late July. But any thoughts there? Yeah, so not so much. Anytime a stock pulls back and tests support, you typically want to see that happen in light volume. And then when support comes in, yeah, it's nice to see some conviction bouts. Haven't seen that yet with Cameco, but I do like the fact that the pullback has been orderly, and it really is making a good case that it's finding support here, especially in light of the price action on Friday when it kind of reversed higher, came down, touched the 50-day line, and then it extended gains today.

11:48So volume has dried up, but I think the chart is still intact. All right. Well, let's take a look at Royal Caribbean, shall we? We're on the daily here. A nice gain today of 4%, Ken. And talk to me about this chart, because again, another nice breakout, but a recent test of this 50-day line, but a nice solid move today for Royal Caribbean. Yeah, this was a nice bounce with conviction. And by conviction, I mean the volume really picked up the pace here. So for swing traders, maybe aggressive traders might have gotten a buy signal today with that nice move above the 10-day moving average. But this is a little similar to CCJ.

12:32In other words, it's a stock that broke out of a base, and now it's coming down and testing the 50-day for the first time. So RCL looks strong here. I think cruise line operators are going to be in the news tomorrow morning because one of the big leaders in the group, Viking Holdings, VIK, is going to be reporting earnings tomorrow. So that typically will move the other cruise line operators. But I believe Viking is going to be out before the open tomorrow. So you can see Viking has been a really, really strong performer in this group. But Royal Caribbean, you know, not too bad itself, testing its 50-day line and looking pretty good.

13:18Now, let's take a look at triple flag precious metals. Ken, this is a gold stock. This was down about nine-tenths of a percent today. But still, in that buy zone, looks like it's maybe testing that 25-45 buy point. So why is this one on your radar? Well, because, you know, we often say when a stock breaks out and you did have a really nice breakout over the 25 level for triple flag precious metals. And then what it did is it just it came down to its 10 day moving average and basically retested that prior buy point of 25.45. So you see that you see that happen a lot in individual stocks. Sometimes a stock breaks out and it never it never retests the buy point.

14:03But plenty do, and Triple Flag is doing that right now. So you've got the heavy volume breakout. To me, it looks like an orderly pullback to the 10-day moving average, still clearly in that 5 % buy zone from the 25-45 entry. So gold stocks have been a mixed bag. Some are still working, others not so much. But triple flag, I believe this is an IBD sector leader or it has been in the past. So, again, fundamentals are pretty impressive here. If you just look down at the bottom of the chart here, you can see triple digit earnings increase in its latest quarter. You can see the top line growth has been very, very strong as well.

14:52So once again, not a surprise to see a very high composite rating here. Fundamentals and technical seem to match up pretty well here, too. All right, Ken. Well, thank you so much for your insights today. And that wraps it up for us for now. We'll be back with more market analysis tomorrow morning, starting with IBD Live. You can head on over to investors.com slash IBD Live for all the details there. And be sure to tune in to Investing with IBD podcast this week. We'll be going live at 4.30 Eastern on Wednesday. We have Steve Quirk with Robinhood Markets on. He's their chief brokerage officer. So I'm going to get some great insights from him on what retail traders are doing and what that platform's doing to get the next generation of investors going on that platform.

15:46So be sure to tune in.

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