It was an ugly close to a nasty week that saw ten consecutive sessions with more decliners than advancers.

By the end of the week, there were 2,102 decliners on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) against 764 advancers, and 3,105 decliners on the NASDAQ Composite against 1,504 advancers.

Heat Map

There needed to be more than a few large green squares and rectangles to offset last week's sea of red.

Factors

Although they have become the Street's favorite factor, midcaps and small-caps continue to get hammered whenever the broad market hits a bump in the road, as large-cap growth remains the de facto haven.

Wall Street and the Media continue to portray the market as strong, but a closer look at individual sectors reveals the following:

Only four sectors have been in the green over the past month. The market is struggling, but seasonality suggests this will be a bounce-back week.

Portfolio Approach

There are no sector weighting changes in the Hotline model portfolio.

Today’s Session

This is supposed to be the start of the second-best week going back to 1928.  Right now, it looks like it might live up to the historic precedents.