Stocks pushed higher on Tuesday as investors positioned portfolios ahead of the FOMC announcement on Wednesday.   Investors overwhelmingly expect no change to present stimulus measures as a result of recent lacklustre employment reports that were less than expected.   Despite the risk-on trading environment that would be implied by maintaining stimulus measures, consumer staples, a defensive sector, continues to dominate market performance.   Sectors that have lagged the market activity as of recent, such as the consumer staples and energy, outperformed the market on Tuesday in what may be construed as month-end positioning; cyclical sectors that have led the markets higher over recent weeks, such as industrials and materials, underperformed broad market benchmarks during the session.   The Russell 2000 Small Cap Index, the classic risk-on play, is also starting to show signs of lagging broad market performance.   Stocks remain significantly overbought and some sort of consolidation appears to be in order to rejuvenate upside momentum.

The gains on the session pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new closing high as the blue chip index attempts to join the other benchmarks in previously uncharted territory.   The Dow is presently testing the upper limit of an over 6 month trading range.   The Dow has significantly underperformed the S&P 500 since mid-April due to lagging performance in Exxon Mobil, IBM, and Caterpillar, each of which typically trend positive into the end of the year.

….read more from EquityClock HERE & the full daily report including Interesting Charts from Don Vialoux’s Timing the Market HERE