Leaders Index 1-22-20

The market was mixed today, but finished with modest gains. The major averages opened higher and produced some decent early gains. They then topped out about an hour and a half into trading and spent the rest of the session working its way lower. All the major averages finished at or very near their intraday trading lows as there was late selling. The Nasd averages were a little stronger with the COMPQ and the NDX gaining .15% and .24% respectively. The SPX was about flat with a gain of only .03%. Volume was lower across the board. It declined 7.94% on the New York and 6.61% on the Nasd. This shows that large institutional players were not dumping stocks today. Leading stocks were a little stronger than the overall market with the leaders index gaining .36% on the day. The index made new highs on both a closing and an intraday basis and closed low in its trading range, also giving up some of its early gains. Volume was lower and below average. The market had something of a negative reversal today with solid early gains being lost before the close. The sting was largely taken away by the fact that volume was lower across the board. This shows that there was not a lot of selling pressure today. Price reversals on high volume are serious and often lead to lower prices. It doesn’t look like we got that today. The charts of the major averages and the leaders index still look fine and today’s action didn’t do much damage. Jerry