It was a very quiet day in the stock market today, with the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average finishing close to flat on Thursday.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) fell 1 basis point, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) dropped 0.2% and the PowerShares QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ) rallied almost 0.2%.
We’ve had a lot of news to digest lately, even though the stock market continues to chop around close to its high. The SPY ETF actually made a new all-time high on Thursday, albeit briefly.
However, we’ve now seen significant moves in bonds, gold, high-growth tech stocks and have seen the S&P 500 break out of its August trading range. Further, investors heard from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday that it will cut interest rates. To top it all off, U.S.-China trade war headline risks are still possible.
It’s been a complex couple of weeks. It also has some investors wondering what asset class will make the next big move. Will it be bitcoin?
Breakout or Breakdown for Bitcoin?
Bitcoin bounced hard off its $9,600 lows today, but the charts do not look all that great. The cryptocurrency is below most of its major moving averages, with the exception of the 200-day. Worse though, it’s making a series of lower highs as resistance squeezes it against support down near $9,360.
This pattern is known as a descending triangle, a bearish technical setup where investors are looking for resistance to break the asset price below support. In this case, a break below $9,360 support could send bitcoin down to its 200-day moving average, currently near $8,000.
If bitcoin can hurdles its 20-day, 50-day and 100-day moving averages, as well as downtrend resistance — which would require a move north of $10,500 presently — then we have a breakout on our hands.
The best setup for investors may be to wait and see which one comes first, and then place their respective trades. That’s opposed to guessing whether it will breakout or breakdown.
Investors can also trade bitcoin via the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTCMKTS:GBTC), shown below.
Movers in the Stock Market Today
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock hit new all-time highs after the company announced a $40 billion buyback plan and upped its dividend by 11% to 51 cents per share. While the payout remains stubbornly low — yielding just under 1.5% — keep in mind that MSFT stock is up nearly 150% over the past three years. In 2019 alone, it’s up about 25%.
It continues to lead mega-cap tech in market cap too, now trading with a $1.1 trillion valuation.
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Model 3 received the top safety rating from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety. That’s the first of Tesla’s four vehicles to receive the designation, if we’re including the original Roadster.
Airbnb says the company will go public in 2020 after earlier announcing that it generated $2 billion in revenue in the second quarter. While there were rumblings of a 2019 IPO at one point, there’s little surprise this one isn’t coming this year. The lackluster response from the public for Uber (NYSE:UBER), Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT), Slack (NYSE:WORK) and certainly We didn’t help matters.
Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) tumbled more than 13% on Wednesday and was set for another nauseating run on Thursday. In pre-market trading, shares were down more than 5% at one point. However, after the company announced several new streaming products, shares ended the day higher, climbing 3% on Thursday. Let’s see if the recent lows can stick. Otherwise, this may just be a dead-cat bounce before more lows are made.
Splitting Up?
According to reports, AT&T (NYSE:T) is reportedly weighing whether to divest its DirecTV unit. This could come via spinoff or potentially a combination with Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH). AT&T acquired the asset in 2015 for nearly $50 billion.
The asset generates solid cash flow for AT&T, but with its bloated balance sheet and the continual loss of subscribers due to cord-cutting, DirecTV is a business that investors bemoan. AT&T has since said it’s not considering the move, but shares still rallied roughly 1% on the day.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long ROKU and T.