To The Moon

We saw the market trading in a mixed mode after the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) data showed a lighter-than-expected uptick in wholesale prices for December. The soft PPI report helped alleviate some concerns about the stickiness of inflation heading into Wednesday morning's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.

S&P 500 was volatile during the session, fluctuating above and below its opening level before closing with a minimal 0.1% gain. The Dow jumped 0.5%, boosted by outperformance from several of its industrial components, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.2%.

S&P 500 Utilities and Financials Top The Group

S&P 500 Utilities sector managed to gain 1.30% with help from names like Vistra Corp (VST) and Constellation Energy Corp (CEG).

Fresh off massive 2024 gains of more than 250% that made the electricity generator's stock one of the year's top S&P 500 performers, $Vistra Energy Corp.(VST)$ shares added 5.2% on Tuesday.

On Monday, Zacks Equities Research highlighted Vistra stock as its "bull of the day," reiterating the utility's opportunity to meet high levels of energy demand from artificial intelligence data centers and noting that consensus estimates suggest that Vistra's already-impressive earnings growth trajectory could accelerate this year.

Financials sector also performed well with a 1.28% gain with bank earnings coming this week, we have names that gained more than 3% like $PayPal(PYPL)$ and $Citizens(CFG)$ on Tuesday (14 Jan).

Note Yield Ease Slightly After Recent Surge

U.S. Treasury yields dipped while the S&P 500 ended slightly higher on Tuesday after data showed U.S. producer prices rose less than expected in December, but investors remained cautious ahead of U.S. consumer price data on Wednesday and the start of quarterly earnings reports.

The U.S. producer price index climbed 0.2% month-on-month in December, below expectations for a 0.3% increase and down from 0.4% in November.

U.S. bond yields ease slightly after recent surge. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was flat Tuesday as traders digest a cooler than expected rise in wholesale prices in December, and looked toward the release of consumer price data.

The 10-year yield was around 2 basis points lower at 4.782% after hitting a fresh 14-month high in the previous session. The 2-year Treasury yield was about 4 basis points lower at 4.363%.

One basis point is equal to 0.01%. Yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Stocks To Watch

After $United Rentals(URI)$ inkeda $4.8 billion deal to acquire fellow heavy-duty equipment rental company H&E Equipment Services (HEES), its shares added 5.9%, notching the strongest gains of any S&P 500 stock on Tuesday, while H&E shares skyrocketed, more than doubling in value.

We might be seeing URI making a nice bullish reversal as it has cross the short-term MA and now trade between the short-term and long-term MA, though MTF is giving a neutral signal as there is still no strong sign of upside.

But MACD has formed a nice bullish upside movement.

Shares of industrial chemical manufacturer Celanese (CE) jumped 5.4% after Bank of America upgraded its view on the stock to "buy" from "underperform." due to the double upgrade to the stock's enticing valuation and expectations for an improvement in the acetyls market.

$APPLIED DIGITAL CORP(APLD)$ shares jumped in intraday trading Tuesday after it announced that Macquarie Asset Management will invest up to $5 billion in its high-performance computing (HPC) data centers. Nvidia (NVDA) has already invested in its data centers and last year announced a stake in the company, which provides advanced digital infrastructure designed to support high-performance computing and artificial intelligence applications.

We could be expecting a bullish MACD crossover as APLD continue to trade above the short-term MA and MTF is also giving an encouraging upward trend, though we are still not seeing a strong signal, but I believe there is a potential upside from APLD.

Summary

I would be expecting the market to continue trading in mixed performance if CPI comes in lighter-than-expected, but a stronger CPI could trigger fear again, this might present another opportunity to get into some of the good quality stocks.

So my current strategy is to slowly buy into good quality stocks as we move along with the market momentum, if you are a believer in fengshui, this is what we can expect from a period 9 stock market, it will be behaving like a fire, wavering from time to time, as the element for period 9 is Fire.

Appreciate if you could share your thoughts in the comment section whether you think market would continue to trade in mixed performance and opportunities would present itself from time to time.

@TigerStars @Daily_Discussion @Tiger_Earnings @TigerWire appreciate if you could feature this article so that fellow tiger would benefit from my investing and trading thoughts.

Disclaimer: The analysis and result presented does not recommend or suggest any investing in the said stock. This is purely for Analysis.