Most stocks took a breather on Wednesday, with NYSE decliners leading advancers by 1,100 issues. But the trillion-dollar club continued to add to their huge gains off the early April lows. Three of the top seven gainers in the S&P 500 are in this rare club. On the day, Information Technology, Communication Services, and Consumer Discretionary all rose slightly -- and that helped the Nasdaq pop 0.7% and the Nasdaq 100 tack on 0.6%. The biggest reason that the major indices have rallied so much is the performance of the largest market-cap stocks. By size, and over the past month, MSFT has gained 16%, NVDA has risen 22%, AMZN has tacked on 15%, META is up 24%, TSLA has rocketed 38%, and AVGO has surged 30%. The other largest stocks (GOOGL, AAPL, and BRK.B) have not really participated. The market caps of the big gainers range from $1.1 trillion to $3.4 trillion. Within IT, semiconductors probably have added the most to the recent gains, as the iShares Semiconductor (SOXX) has soared 38% over the 24 days ending May13. That's the largest 24-day run for the chips since early 2000; after rebounding from 9/11; and coming off the October 2002 bear-market bottom. Let's not forget, the SOXX crumbled 41% from its July 2024 all-time high. For more perspective, the SOXX surged 169% from the 2022 low to the 2024 high. The SOXX is now approaching key resistance, including a 61.8% retracement of the bear market and trendline resistance off the 2024 peak. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

IBM is a leading U.S.-based provider of enterprise IT hardware, software and services. In November 2021, IBM spun off the managed infrastructure assets of its former Global Technology Services business into Kyndryl (NYSE: KD). To align with its platform-centric approach, IBM has revised its segment reporting into four major categories: Consulting, Software, Infrastructure, and Global Financing.

U.S. stocks rallied for a third day on Thursday. The S&P 500 rose 2% and the Nasdaq up 5.4% for the week, led by the Information Technology sector. The Dow rose 1.2%. Oil is at $63 per barrel. Gold is above $3,360 per ounce.

The major indices closed with nice gains on Wednesday, but well off the highs achieved earlier in the session. The S&P 500 (SPX) gained 1.4%, the S&P 100 tacked on 1.7%, the Nasdaq rose 2.3%, and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) added 2.1%. So it shouldn't be hard to tell what sector led. Yes, it was Information Technology (XLK), with a 3% jump and broad industry participation. Consumer Discretionary was second, rising 2.4% due to a 5.5% gain is TSLA, while Communication Services added 1.7% on gains in GOOGL and META. Chart provider StockCharts has a proprietary system known as SCTR, or the StockCharts Technical Rank. It is a relative strength metric that rates a stock's technical strength against its peers. Stocks are assigned a score based on six key indicators covering different timeframes. Within the S&P 500, the strongest 10% are ranked from 90 to 99.99, while the weakest 10% are scored from 0 to 9.99. These rankings tell a story that should be obvious to anyone that follows the market closely. The three highest-ranked sectors are Consumer Staples (88), Utilities (79), and Financials (72). That's certainly not the type of leadership one would prefer and is reminiscent of defensive posturing during an ongoing correction/bear market. The weakest are Information Technology (7), Materials (12), and Energy (13). Drilling down, the weakest IT industries are renewable energy (6) and semis (12). While not impossible, it will be tough for strong returns from the majors unless Information Technology gets off the mat. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)