American Express provides charge and credit payment card products and travel-related services to customers worldwide. The company's product portfolio consists of charge and credit card products; expense management products and services; consumer and business travel services; stored-value products, including travelers checks and other prepaid products; network services; point-of-sale, marketing, and information products and services for merchants; fraud prevention services; and the design of customer loyalty and rewards programs.

It's been a wild, volatile, mostly down week with stocks rotating from tech to small caps, then surprisingly back the other way. There's been much selling and segmentation in the broad market. The massive, global IT glitch was not a welcome ending to a summer Friday morning. At midday, Wall Street is all in red and trying to shake off the week and get prepped for next week - Big Tech earnings are coming and more key inflation data.

American Express is a global financial institution, operating in about 130 countries, that provides consumers and businesses charge and credit card payment products. The company also operates a highly profitable merchant payment network. Since 2018, it has operated in three segments: global consumer services, global commercial services, and global merchant and network services. In addition to payment products, the company's commercial business offers expense management tools, consulting services, and business loans.

Overall, the stock market had another very good day yesterday. But, once again, it was because of the suddenly loved (for now) little guys. To put this into perspective, the total market cap of the Russell 2000 (IWM) is said to be only as large as one of the multiple $3 trillion market-cap stocks in the "Magnificent 7." But let's not spoil the party. Stocks are posting some historical returns on massive trading volume. Over the past five days, IWM has soared 11.5%. Excluding the comeback from the pandemic, the index has now logged the greatest five-day period since October 2011. Before that, you have to go back to the initial rally after the March 2009 bear-market low to find such a move. The IWM is only nine points (about 4%) from its November 8, 2021, all-time high. It has completed a massive 31-month consolidation and, as they say, the larger the base, the higher in space. Over the past four days, IWM volume exploded as investors piled into the small-cap trade while, we imagine, many long mega-cap and short small-cap trades were unwound. The four-day volume totaled 227.4 million shares or 56.9 mln./day. The 50-day average is 26.5 mln. shares and the 200-day average is 36 mln. shares. This is the largest cluster of volume during an IWM rally since December. Typically, large clusters of huge volume happen during corrections and bear markets and many times represent downside capitulation. Market breadth obviously has been strong, with the four-day NYSE advances-declines hitting +1,004. This is a short-term breadth thrust and is usually associated with the beginning of an advance. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)