Nasdaq KFTX

Meander, wander, drift & snooze. That's Friday. The major averages started slow and finished slower. All sold off toward the close and finished lower on the day. The end of the 1st quarter is in the books. Dow lower today. NASDAQ Composite lower today. S&P lower today(and slightly lower on the month). Its like the "Do Not Disturb" sign has been hung out. Not much to say. Fintech sector? The

KFTX

fintech index popped up

.86

(

+0.08%

) and closed at 1135.66 on this fine Spring Friday. Which stocks in that 50 stock index fought their way to a 2 point move and/or a 3% spin.

BOFI

-1.45 (26.13) -5.26%

DNB

+2.11 (107.94)

FLT

+3.33 (151.43)

One thing about really slow markets, less work in finding which stocks moved

because they don't move

. Oh advance decline had 28 up and 22 down. So that's Friday and its nap time. OK, now that I had a little time to nap and refresh, lets take a look at the week that was. Markets (major averages) 'zip' and 'zap' seemingly at random with bouts of just plain boredom punctuated with spurts of buying (and selling). This past week the buying spurts outnumbered the selling spurts and all the major averages (Dow, NASDAQ Composite, S&P 500) closed higher on the week. In fact the NASDAQ composite hit an all time high. How? Well, just look at 5 or less stocks in that index and that will explain it. Indeed, a small group of stocks in the averages are making up virtually

ALL

the market moves. In stock market parlance, that is known as

A CROWDED TRADE

. So, is the whole financial market a

CROWDED TRADE?

No, but the concentration of new money flowing into a limited number of index ETF's and select big name stocks is (or should be) extremely concerning. I'm thinking the robots and the AI (artificial intelligence) groups may not be totally aware of what they are creating, not to mention what might happen when the market declines (

OH YES, THEY DO

). The programmers with their robots have not been tested in a down market (again,

YES THEY DO

) and don't get me started on the ETF pricing "issues" that can really blow up. I am urging Def Level 5 caution

( I have an out. If the markets go up that will be on a scale of 100; if it goes down its on a scale of......5. Transparency).

When might a down market start. Ah, I'll give you bank wiring instructions for that call.

Now lets focus on the fintech sector, specifically the KBW NASDAQ KFTX 50 stock index. After declining over 2% in the previous week, the KFTX got half back this past week with a gain of 12.47 points, a little more than 1%. to close at 1135.66. Advance/decline had 42 issues up and 8 issues down.

Now, out of those 50 stocks in the index lets see which ones moved 3% or more last week'

ADS

(249.00) +3.75%

CATM

(46.75) +3.65%

CBOE

(81.07) +3.51%

CLGK

(40.72) +5.22%

DNB

(107.94) +4.38%

EEFT

(85.52) +3.47%

FDC

(15.50) +3.33%

FDS

(164.91) -5.66% (Awww, a downer)

GPN

(80.68) +3.84%

HAWK

(40.60) +6.28%

INFO

(41.95) +4.51%

LC

(5.49) +5.58%

RATE

(9.65) +4.26%

SQ

(17.28) +4.73%

TREE

(125.35) +7.25%

TSS

(53.46) +4.42%

WETF

(9.08) +6.06%

So there you go. Week ahead? Friday brings March NFP numbers with a 175K est vs 235K prior and 1st quarter GDP figured to come in around 1%. Those are the big ones so far. But, lets ask the robots what they think. Beep beep, and BEEP! (Stay cautious). Have a great week.