Leaders Index 12-2-21

The market bounced back today after yesterday’s decline. The major averages opened moderately higher and mostly worked their way up the rest of the session. All the major averages finished high in their intraday trading ranges. The Nasd averages were the weakest with the COMPQ and the NDX gaining .83% and .71% respectively. The SPX rallied 1.42%. The small and mid-cap stocks were the strongest as the RUT and the MID gained 2.74% and 2.73% each. Volume was lower across the board. It fell 14.32% on the Nasd and 8.30% on the New York. This is disappointing as you would prefer to see higher volume on the rebound than you saw on the sell off. Leading stocks were higher as well with the leaders index gaining 1.60% on the day. The index closed high in its trading range on lower but still pretty high volume. After a big decline you want to check the quality of the bounce. Today’s bounce was mixed at best. The price gains in the major averages were ok, except for the Nasd averages, but they were less than yesterday’s losses. This is especially true in the leading stocks as today’s increase in the leaders index was much less than yesterday’s decline. A lot of damage has been done in recent weeks to both the major averages and quality growth stocks. In addition there does seem to be a rotation to value stocks from growth recently. Santa could regain his footing and carry the market higher into year end, but right now the burden of proof is on Santa. Jerry