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In last week’s update we reviewed the market’s good and bad, and we wrote that “we think the odds strongly favor the next big move being up. But, near-term, there’s still a decent chance that growth and other Top Ten-type names could see more backsliding (or bottom building, if you prefer) before breaking out.” Our Market Monitor has crept up of late but is still at a level 6 (out of 10).

Before we dive into this week’s covered call idea we need to move on from our Rocket (RKT) position following expiration last Friday as the call expired worthless, leaving us with our stock position.

The election results and Federal Reserve rate cut were seemingly just what the market was looking for as the S&P 500 rallied 4.7% last week, the Dow added 4.65% and the Nasdaq gained 5.4%.

Despite some selling pressures early last week, the indexes rebounded nicely on nearly every small dip, and by week’s end the S&P 500 had gained 1%, the Dow was mostly unchanged, and the Nasdaq had risen by 1.8%.

We’ve seen plenty of split tapes in our day, but this one is about as divergent as we can remember, and this week was another example of it playing out. Coming into today, the big-cap Nasdaq was up about 3% on the week while the S&P 500 was up 1.5%—but outside of a couple of growth measures, the rest of the market was flat (up 0.5% to down), and that’s before what looks like a down opening this morning.

The holiday-shortened week was mostly quiet outside of the AI/Semiconductors plays, which once again rose nicely. As for the rest of the market, by the numbers below it was a good week, though under the surface it feels like not many stocks are truly rallying.

For the week, the S&P 500 gained 1.35%, the Dow rose marginally, and the Nasdaq added another 2.9%.

Risk off was the theme last week as traders are once again worried about sticky inflation, and now there is growing fear of further war in the Middle East. And while those are two big worries, big picture it wasn’t a terrible week for the indexes as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both fell 1.6%, while the Dow lost 2.36%

Somewhat quietly, the Dow has rallied eight straight days, and is leading the market higher as of late. Such is the rotation of the market, especially during earnings season.

For the week the S&P 500 gained 1.4%, the Dow rallied 1.75% and the Nasdaq gained 1%.

Before we get into this week’s covered call idea, we have two positions we need to address coming out of expiration Friday.

Because the market has somewhat lost its momentum recently, we are going to exit our WDC and WSC stock positions, as the March calls we sold expired worthless on Friday.

After a big rally, the market had earned the right to retrench a bit, and that came about last week after stocks were hit with a few “bad” news items, starting with the downgrade of U.S. debt, followed by a new high in longer-term (30-year) Treasury rates and capped by a threat of higher tariffs on Europe.

Those tariff worries eased over the weekend and in reaction the S&P 500 gained 2% on Tuesday.

The recent bull run continued last week, this time led by Small Caps (IWM), which gained 3.5%, followed by a gain of 2.3% for the Dow, and 1.7% for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 broke back above the 6,000 level for the first time since February last week as the indexes are now within striking distance of their all-time highs (though they do have some work to do). By week’s end, the S&P 500 had gained 1.5%, the Dow had rallied 1.2% and the Nasdaq had advanced by 2.2%

It’s been yet another mildly positive week for the major indexes, with just about everything up in the 0.5% to 1% range coming into Friday. Once again, that keeps the intermediate-term trend of the market pointed up, which, combined with the many other positive current (broad market healthy, defensive stocks lagging) and big-picture (blastoff indicators flashing green from May and June) measures, the path of least resistance remains up.

Before we dive into this week’s covered call idea, we do need to clean up our CENX position from the November expiration cycle, as the call we sold expired worthless, leaving us with our stock, which we will sell for a net virtual breakeven. Here are the details:

The market had another week of heavy sector and index rotation nearly every day, as hot money seemingly chased the new fad/theme based on every economic data point and earnings reaction. Yet despite the day-to-day market wiggles, by week’s end, not much ground was gained or lost as the S&P 500 gained 0.3%, the Dow lost 0.3% and the Nasdaq rose by 1.1%.

Led higher by major tech stocks (and especially AAPL), the Nasdaq gained nearly 4% last week, closing at a new record high. Less impressive were the other leading indexes, though their gains were very positive as well, as the S&P 500 added 2.4%, while the Dow rallied 1.3%.

Before we dive into this week’s covered call idea, we need to clean up a couple positions from the October expiration cycle.

The market’s momentum continued last week as a benign inflation print and another round of solid earnings backed up bullish sentiment—with virtually all of the major indexes moving higher. For the week the S&P 500 rose 0.7%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.8%, the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.2%, but the Russell 2000 slipped 1.4%.