Materials sector benchmark getting pinned between rising support and declining resistance; resolution appears imminent. Real Time Economic Calendar provided by Investing.com. *** Stocks highlighted are for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice to purchase or to sell mentioned securities. As always, the use of technical and fundamental analysis is encouraged in order to fine tune entry and exit points to average seasonal trends. Stocks Entering Period of Seasonal Strength Today: American Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE:AMID) Seasonal Chart Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASD:LECO) Seasonal Chart Advisory Board Co. (NASD:ABCO) Seasonal Chart Franklin Covey Co. (NYSE:FC) Seasonal Chart Royal Dutch Shell Plc. A Shares (NYSE:RDS/A) Seasonal Chart DST Systems, Inc. (NYSE:DST) Seasonal Chart W&T Offshore Inc. (NYSE:WTI) Seasonal Chart Natural Gas Services Group, Inc. (NYSE:NGS) Seasonal Chart The Markets Stocks gyrated around the flat-line on Thursday as investors digested headlines pertaining to trade and the weak industrial production numbers coming out of China. The S&P 500 Index shed a tenth of a percent, once again holding below the 2815 level of resistance that everyone is watching. Materials realized the bulk of the selling as commodity prices came under pressure amidst concerns of slowing growth in the Chinese economy. The S&P 500 Materials Sector Index continues to struggle with resistance at its declining 200-day moving average; rising support at the 20 and 50-day moving averages will inevitably trigger a resolution as the sector breaks up or breaks down. Seasonally, the materials sector remains in a period of seasonal strength into the month of May. On the economic front, another report on new home sales that raises questions as to how the results are calculated. The headline print indicates that new home sales in the US fell by 6.9% from a previously revised seasonally adjusted annual rate of 652,000 to a pace of 607,000. Analysts were expecting a rate of 612,000. Stripping out the seasonal adjustments, new home sales actually fell by 4.3% in this first month of the year, which is a significant divergence compared to the 5.4% increase that is average for January. This follows a 4.4% increase in new home sales for all of 2018, which is a notable shift from the 2.2% calendar year decline reported just 10 days ago, hence our questions pertaining to the calculation of this gauge of housing activity. As of our last look a week and a half ago, 2018 looked like the weakest calendar year performance for new home sales since 2010, but now last year was merely the weakest since 2016. To receive our analysis of this report, subscribe via the following link and we’ll send you this and future reports to assist in your seasonal investing strategy: https://charts.equityclock.com/subscribe Sentiment on Thursday, as gauged by the put call ratio, ended bullish at 0.91. Seasonal charts of companies reporting earnings today: S&P 500 Index TSE Composite