Market Alert - The Close

SOX and NASDAQ led the market higher as all indices again posted gains. AVGO made its intentions for QCOM official and they both helped drive SOX higher, but the closed off their highs while SOX did not -- other chips were clearly engaged upside.

The midcap SP400 and the large cap SP500 were not chicken feed, though DJ30 and RUTX clearly brought up the rear, up, but no game changers.

Indeed, nothing was really a game changer. Just more of the same from last week with the large cap tech and chips enjoying most of the upside interest.

SP500 3.29, 0.13%
NASDAQ 22.00, 0.33%
DJ30 9.23, 0.04%
SP400 0.40%
RUTX 0.20%
SOX 1.34%
NASDAQ 100 0.29%

VOLUME: NYSE +5%, NASDAQ -3%. NYSE trade back above average after a drop off from 8 straight sessions over average. NASDAQ trade was lower but remained solidly above average as it has for nine straight sessions. All upside for NASDAQ as the money is definitely moving its way.

ADVANCE/DECLINE: NYSE 1.4:1, NASDAQ 1.2:1. Definitely noncommittal -- at least outside of the large cap techs. Very narrow move is driving the upside action. At least it is an improvement over Friday that saw NASDAQ A/D negative as NASDAQ put in a quite solid move. Again, all large cap tech.

Thus, the indices continued their same performance, i.e. upside, as well as their relative performance, i.e. NASDAQ and SOX leading, SP500 and SP400 not too far back and mimicking one another, while DJ30 and RUTX just tag along.

Oil stocks saw some solid action. The patterns were setting up, good moves were starting, oil was breaking out of its range. Then the Saudi Arabia weekend events let fly (corruption roundup and 'arrests' of some very big and wealthy names; interception of a missile fired from Yemen, TWO princes killed in separate incidents, the second in a firefight when he was to be arrested) and oil rallied even more (57.35, +1.71), putting a good move on the top of the range (54.90 - 55.00). This helped break some plays higher and we picked up a couple.

Chips as noted enjoyed another good session and we banked some more AVGO gain on the gap higher. Software still solid. FAANG up nicely, at least FB, AAPL, AMZN; GOOG is testing some and that is what we wanted. Retail saw some good action from KORS and its earnings, SIG, though it was not across the board. Indeed, no leaders are up across the board. The moves are somewhat specific, but the patterns are there and they are working. Again, it is narrow, but if you go where the money is, as we are, the moves are there and so is some very good money.

We picked up some DO and SN in oil, NATI in software, AMZN and SIG in retail. Afterhours was not an earnings love fest, however. PCLN, TRIP, TRUE, RRGB were not bad, but guidance and slight misses are punished. WTW is up nicely on its results while CRM is up 3+ clicks on news it is joining with GOOG on some cloud services. Strong get stronger while the rest are still culled.

This market move is narrow and specific. Yet, it is enough to drive the entire market higher. At some point not, but with the new breakouts from some big names that put in their time and broke higher again, it has leadership that can as we have seen before, even with narrow breadth.

Have a great evening!

Jon Johnson, Chief Market Strategist
InvestmentHouse.com
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