S&P 500 Price/Volume Heat Map for 7/1 Trading Day

Another day and another lower volume increase in the S&P 500, this time gaining 50 basis points. The day's trading was lower quality, in my opinion, as the market traded up more than 100 basis points most the day but sold off into the close on accelerating volume. This is a sign of distribution. In any event, all sectors except for utilities and telecom gained.

Mirroring the price performance industrials exhibited the best overall price/volume characteristics on the day. Additionally, material stock price/volume characteristics were stronger than the overall price performance. The price/volume characteristics for utilities was highly negative, reflecting the price performance of the group. I think the rally since June 21 is a low quality, short covering move in the utilities stocks and at the very least a retest of the near-term lows is likely.