'Shuffling' sort of describes market action, as it digested the near-parabolic behavior of big-tech / AI stocks yesterday, and then recovered reasonably into Wednesday's finale, although still hesitant on quite a few fronts essentially.

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The most obvious is the pending 'Debt Ceiling' deal, which should be passed by the time you read this. The least noticed is the conflict in the Balkans, as I should note that the US (not UN) moved 700 NATO troops into Kosovo to stop the craziness and warned Serbia accordingly.

Nor did anyone take notice of the UAE withdrawing from a joint maneuver in the Persian Gulf with the US Navy, as they are upset about limited security by US Forces.. well, maybe they should buy more warships instead of towering opulent structures to suit their oil-funded lifestyles. The US had told them, as we shift focus more to Asia (Indo-Pacific Command rather than 5th Fleet) to prepare to provide more for their own security, and I guess they now get that.

Certainly when you get an out-of-the box rally to start a trading week (this is a shorter one of course), it's normal to retreat before trying to advance anew, at the same time the 'Debt deal' and somewhat euphoric AI leadership has had a tendency to 'town down' the enthusiasm, as it should. In fact we proffered if we owned N'vidia (NVDA) (we don't as preferred AMD in recent years) that we'd 'ring the register' to some extent as it spiked yesterday.

And we wouldn't chase any of the already overworked plays, even if higher. In our current holdings we retain AMD (since 17 or so, with portions sold higher) and actually viewed Intel better once it had dropped into the 20's (though lots of patience needed until they actually have the new Arizona fabs going).

It's really the small AI plays that are riskier on the surface but also not worked so heavily as the big plays, and thus might have best upside potential.. but as they are small companies typically just emerging from financial restructuring or offerings, these things too can take time. SoundHound (SOUN) and BigBear.ai (BBAI) are both a bit controversial, but SOUN recently had it's 50-day Moving Average cross the 200-day, which is normally a bullish sign of favorable momentum.

In-sum: 

At one point S&P almost erased it's monthly modest advance, while of course all of this is within the same trading range for the Senior Index.

For now the Debt Ceiling 'Bill' is about an hour from passage in the House so will go forward. The real key to the market holding together will be whether or not there's any enhancement of 'breadth' from other-than tech leadership.

The S&P 500 continues oscillating in the upper trading-range regions. It is hard to imagine even the Debt Ceiling passing having much more effect, at the same time the ramp for stocks outside the leadership might be clearer as that's behind the market. Geopolitical issues are present, and we'll see if the presence of both Musk and Dimond in China helps mend some fences or not.

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