The major market averages finished fractionally higher Friday on lower volume. The markets were digesting their gains after the larger moves it made over the last couple of weeks. Such action is calm and constructive given the backdrop of leading stocks that overall have also been acting reasonably well.
Premarket futures are up sharply at the time of this writing. Yesterday it was reported that Larry Summers has removed himself from consideration for the position of Federal Reserve Chairman as the Obama Administrations seeks replacements for current Chairman Ben Bernanke when his term ends at the end of this year. This puts current Fed board member Janet Yellen, known for her monetary dovishness, in the pole position for the Chairmanship. It is believed that Ms. Yellen may not scale back on quantitative easing as aggressively as Summers would have done. Futures may also be reacting to news over the weekend that the U.S. and Russia have come to an agreement over Syrian chemical weapons.
3-D printing stocks got clocked Friday with Stratasys (SSYS) gapping below its 50-day moving average on big volume. Exone (XONE) priced 2.66 mil shares at $62 and promptly broke issue earlier in the week. Three D Systems (DDD) is sitting on top of its base so it acting the best of the three. If it moves below the lows of the recent two trading days, it will have moved back into its base. Should one wish to give it more room to the 50-day, keep in mind it tends to undercut its 50-day by a few percentage points. However, the group as a whole is somewhat "late-stage" and may be better avoided.