Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices are pinned close to their lows for the session, which has the S&P 500 testing 5,500. Its 50-day moving average, though, doesn't come into play until closer to 5,400.

By and large, there has been a lack of buying conviction today. The CrowdStrike (CRWD 298.94, -44.11, -12.9%) issue has been a convenient excuse for that, but not an entirely sufficient excuse.

The more sufficient excuse is an abiding sense that the market is simply due for a pullback. That would include the small-cap stocks, which surged nearly 12% in just seven trading sessions. It certainly includes the mega-cap stocks, which have soared nearly 100% since their lows in early 2023 as measured by the Vanguard Mega-Cap Growth ETF (MGK).

The latter is down 0.7% today while the Russell 2000 is down 0.6%. The broad-based weakness extends to the equal-weighted S&P 500 (-0.8%), the market-cap weighted S&P 500 (-0.7%), the Nasdaq Composite (-0.8%), the S&P Midcap 400 (-0.8%), and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-0.9%).