CLOSING RAMP

Markets closed near/at their highs as the strong internals and strength in financials/brokers and semis early gave the sign that a nice up day may be the play.

Strongest sectors were airlines, small caps, homies, brokers, banks, trannies, semis and utilities. Weakest were oils and retail as the usual black Friday excitement of "its gonna be a great holiday season" faded to the typical post XMAS disappointment.

Market internals were strong all day and closed with 1,300 more gainers than winners on the NYSE and 735 more green than red on the NAZ.

The NAZ 100 ended with 70/30 winners to losers with JOYG CHRW AMAT INFY XRAY SNDK the strongest. On the SPX 100, there were about 8 winners to every 2 losers with EK MER MS WMT GM and DD the big winners. To the downside were LTD EP SLB HAL and BHI.

On the DJIA there were only 5 losers, PFE MMM MRK T and JNJ.

I suspect the rally continues tomorrow but note again the underperformance of the NAZ and the outlier performance of the IWM. Hmmmmm.

Oh and one of Jeff Saut's picks for 2007 is the ITA or the DJ Aero/Defense index. I like it.