Leaders Index 5-18-23

There was no update yesterday due to an outage with my ISP. The market had a couple of solid up days on news that a deal on the debt ceiling might be close. After strong gains yesterday the major averages opened mixed and then sold off mildly. Buying came in and the major averages rallied into the close and finished with solid gains. They all closed near their intraday trading highs. Nasd averages were the strongest as tech stocks showed good gains. The COMPQ and the NDX rallied 1.51% and 1.81% respectively. The SPX was higher by .94%. Volume was slightly higher across the board, for the second day in a row. Leading stocks rallied as well with the leaders index gaining 2.13% on the day. The index closed high in its trading range on much higher volume. It also cleared all its moving averages. The market staged two days of good price advances on higher volume. This is positive action. Indications that a deal on the debt limits that came out yesterday and again today were likely the primary causes of the gains. I said recently that the market looked like it had a bid under it and that seems to be playing out. A deal on the debt limit and the elimination of the threat of a default can drive the market in the short term. Growth stocks also are leading the move, which is also encouraging. It looks like the market wants to go high in at least the near term so there may well be some gains to be had, but it is still questionable that it is ready for a really serious move higher. Jerry