Dow Today – LIVE MARKETS Wall Street advancing as tech titans charge forth

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WALL STREET ADVANCING AS TECH TITANS CHARGE FORTH (1006 EST/1506 GMT)

Major U.S. indexes are advancing on Thursday with tech titans providing the biggest boost to the S&P 500 (.SPX).

Investors are continuing to digest the Federal Reserve’s latest comments about its tightening plans, which created massive volatility in the market on Wednesday afternoon as they also eyed earnings reports and the latest news on Russia/ Ukraine tensions.

Stocks leading the early charge include Microsoft ((MSFT).O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Amazon.com .

Here is your early snapshot:

(Sinéad Carew)

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LEVERAGED NASDAQ 100 ETFs, NEW MEMES? (0900 EST/1400 GMT)

The Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 (QQQ.O), which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index (.NDX), is down around 15% from its November record close.

With this, the market has taken a shine to leveraged ETFs on both sides of the aisle. In fact, this January, the Proshares Ultra Short QQQ ETF (SQQQ.O) has now traded around 1 billion shares, or its highest monthly turnover ever using Refinitiv data back to early 2010. read more

As well, raw money flow (RMF) (typical price x volume) in both the 3x bear SQQQ, and the Proshares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ.O), the 3x bull version, has exploded. For example, on Wednesday, RMF in both of these notoriously risky and volatile ETFs eclipsed that of 28 of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) constituents.

And on Tuesday, the ratio of SQQQ RMF to TQQQ RMF rose to about 44%, or its highest level since early-March 2021. This, as the allure of the downside has become more appealing :

It now remains to be seen, if this sudden relative shift toward the bear-side has become sufficiently intense to now catch bears flat-footed, or if they will continue to steam roll the bulls.

Meanwhile, looking at the QQQ itself, its Money Flow index (MFI), on a monthly basis, is nearing important support:

Since early 2018, the QQQ MFI has been essentially trapped between a resistance line from its 2014 high and a support line from its 2009 low.

After once again topping shy of the resistance line this past August, the MFI is now nearing the support line. If the support line can continue to work its magic, and the MFI can bottom, a significant QQQ low may once again be found.

Conversely, an MFI support line break would have the potential to end what has been a consistent pattern, and instead would suggest risk the QQQ may be jumping on an even steeper waterfall slide.

(Terence Gabriel)

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Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own

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