It's Like Walmart on a Cruise Ship

An early fade in the small caps housed in the IWM ETF is slowing down what figured to be a fast open to the upside for bulls. Overall, though, this market continues to sport constant rotation, staving off the most eager of bears. 

On that note, some overlooked sub-sectors should get some attention. One of them would be the cruise liners, as part of the general consumer discretionary complex. CCL NCLH and RCL are the three main tickers, all household brand names even for those who do not typically go on cruises. 

All three charts are attempting to turn the corner higher after suffering punishing corrections in the first half of this year. Indeed, since July CCL NCLH RCL have tried to scallop out bottoms and have been methodically grinding higher ever since. 

And that brings us to the present, where I suspect all three charts are at a crossroads of sorts regarding how they will finish 2018. 

Norwegian Cruise Line, for example, on the daily chart, below, is basing at its 200-day moving average after operating well below it since April. Resolution higher here should help proper the sub-sector higher, too, while failure and rejection ought to be a red flag. 

Cruise ships may seem like one-stop WMT-style shopping these days, with seemingly everything under the sun available onboard. But they are still a fairly niche segment of discretionary stocks which seem to be overlooked by traders much of the time, which is why it is instructive to track their progress this autumn.