Major averages fell on higher but below average volume. With light holiday trading going into the New Year's Day holiday, today's distribution day was easily achieved. Tax selling could have been part of the reason for the soft performance as investors waited to sell until after the year so profits would not be realized until tax year 2014. Despite the lower averages, a number of leading names moved higher out of constructive patterns on appreciable volume and a large number of pocket pivots were observed.
Among these were:
YY, Inc. (YY), which had another pocket pivot following on last week's pocket pivot which we reported on December 27th.
Splunk (SPLK), another name we've reported on recently. also had a pocket pivot.
Solar energy stocks, which are currently ranked #1 among all industry groups, were responsible for an unusually large number of pocket pivots that were observed yesterday, including Sunpower (SPWR), First Solar (FSLR), Canadian Solar (CSLR), Solar City (SCTY), Jinko Solar (JKS), and Trina Solar (TSL).
Chinese internet retailer Vipshops (VIPS) had a pocket pivot yesterday, its third in the past nine trading days.
Fleetcor Technologies (FLT) which is trying to come up off the lows of a potential new base. FLT's institutional sponsorship has increased in every quarter since the company went public 12 quarters ago.
Sturm Ruger (RGR )- the pistol and shotgun maker with strong sales and earnings and an impressive return-on-equity of 60.8%.is also trying to round out the lows of a potential new base.
This morning recent IPO and next-generation cyber-security firm FireEye (FEYE) is gapping up out of its first base since coming public back in late September. We will issue further reports on FEYE's potential buyable gap-up move as the situation develops once the market opens.