Leaders Index 1-15-14

The market had a small gap open today and was strong the entire session. All the major averages closed near their intraday highs with solid gains. The COMPQ continued to lead the way with a gain of .76% and the SPY was up .52%. Both set new highs for the move and have broken above their recent consolidation areas. The most positive aspect of today’s action was the volume. It was higher across the board and above average on both exchanges. This makes today’s action more positive than yesterday’s even though the price gains were less. Leading stocks were generally higher even though many were down. The leaders index had a small decline of .14% today on higher but below average volume. The losses in the index today were concentrated in two stocks, QIWI and NUS. Both had large declines on heavy volume and were down in excess of 15% each. Even with these large declines the gains in other stocks in the index evened them out and the index was essentially flat on the session. Interestingly, there two stocks were one and two on the latest IBD 50 list. The index looks like it is starting to form the right side of a saucer shaped base so we will have to see how this plays out. The number of land mines is increasing, as shown by the two above mentioned stocks, but the market is certainly acting like it wants to go higher and probably will in at least the short term. Jerry