An 'influx of apathy' - almost halted trading on this 'tweener' session. Given a difficult geopolitical backdrop, an accepted axiom of a 'friendlier Fed' and the closing of books on 2023, it's not unusual to get this kind of a day.

Freepik

Now we know that the U.S. is restraining itself from true retaliation for attacks not just on Southern Israel, but on general commercial shipping and our Navy, by Iranian-backed (or even technically operated) Houthis (they are more like the government power in Yemen than the rebel group they're portrayed as).

Just maybe Washington can't figure out if a proper response (knocking-out at least the launchers and associated facilities) is what Iran wants as they really do want to expand their regional hegemony (almost competing with Turkey as seemingly the media hasn't picked-up...relates more to Syria and Iraq). Or if Iran is trying to provoke the U.S. to either looked feeble in response or rolling it all into a regional war.

Don't know, time will tell. And it looks like our noting the location of an Iranian warship in the Red Sea was indeed the command & control heart of the ongoing drone-missile attacks. Meanwhile Lebanon hotter, Israel 'on-edge'.

Market X-Ray: 

The continuation pattern could be seen as exhaustion, but this point of the yearend tends to be a 'trend in motion' and pushing mega-cap or other gainers into the New Year for tax purposes, as well as lifting small-caps a bit. Nothing has changed really, so we'll abbreviate our comments.

My pre-close comment was very near the Bell, so it will be the final tonight. I note most individual stocks firmed a bit or shuffled around with small changes. The NY Times (NYT) suing Microsoft (MSFT) is not too big a deal, per one of our members who is close to the action there.. although a complicated scenario to assess. I also note technically meaningful gains is a few smaller stocks, like recent add drone play, ONDS Holdings (ONDS). Making it through 1.50 is important for that small stock, and of course 'if' they get a railroad contract it might be a bit bigger. So might be the case 'if' they get a larger military contract from Israel's IDF soon. In the military and increasingly commercial space, BigBear.ai is also building-up would could be upside steam. Hopefully sustains.

While this is a continuation, S&P high, VIX is low, and a setback for reasons of diverse nature remains 'in the loop' as possibilities for January. Could even it seems be lifting by small-caps and neutrality or fading by some mega-caps.

I'll not speculate more as I presume you all know what I'm referring too, and it could be helped 'if' Hamas were to surrender, or Oil halts it's advance. There's a lot on table or pending, so varying resolutions could have varying influence, but generally I'm thinking in terms of a big-cap pause to refresh in part of early 2024, not a catastrophe, barring that extent of an interruption to world order.

Bottom-line: 

Watching the action is akin to staring at drying paint, but always pleasing as the trend persists and smaller-stocks generally improve just a bit.

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