Getting Ahead Of Rally In Retail Sector ETF

by Mike Paulenoff
May 15, 2021 • 11:29 AM EDT
This past Friday, 30 minutes before the release of Retail Sales data for April, Mike Paulenoff posted his analysis of XRT, the SPDR S&P Retail Sector ETF.
After explaining in detail his analysis, which you can read here, Mike concluded: "All of the action from the Jan. 28th high at 99.24 through Tuesday's (May 12th) higher pullback low, represents a larger, bullish digestion period and pattern atop the dominant 15 month uptrend. In addition, based on my experience, the Coil type pattern that has been carved out has the requisite number of traverses across the contracting range to be considered complete or nearly complete, which if reasonably accurate, argues for the emergence of a new upleg in the XRT that propels the Retail ETF to new highs above 100, with an outlier upside target zone of 108 to 112."
XRT, trading at 89.56 at the time, proceeded to gap up to 90.60/65 at the open, despite a disappointing Retail Sales report. It clawed its way higher for all of Friday's session, closing at 93.42, a full 4.3% above its pre-market price at Mike's alert, and 3% above its up-gap opening price. This indicated strongly that the bullish pattern described by Mike in his early AM analysis to MPTader members was "calling the shots" for the XRT regardless of the apparent hiccup in April Retail Sales.
Where is XRT headed next? Based on Mike's analysis, XRT hasn't even broken out of its multi-month bullish digestion pattern yet.
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Mike Paulenoff is the author of MPTrader.com, a real-time diary of his technical analysis & trade alerts
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