In this brief market report, we look at the various asset classes, sectors, equity categories, ETFs, and stocks that moved the market higher and those that moved lower. The idea is to identify shifting trends and emerging market leadership.
Identifying the pockets of strength and weakness allows us to see the direction of significant money flows and their origin.
June is off to a positive start
The first week of June may have lacked 'fireworks' but it did produce 4 up days out of 5, for a gain of 1.5% on the week.
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A look at monthly returns.
This chart shows the monthly returns for the past year. This chart brings into focus the powerful rally we saw in May. The market is now in positive territory YTD, up by 2%.
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A look at drawdowns this year.
Here is a closer look at the pullbacks we've had over the last 12 months, using a drawdown chart. The current drawdown is -2.3% from the February 19 high. As you can see, most of the damage done in February through March (down 19%) has been repaired in April and May.
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A look at the bull run since it began last October.
This chart highlights the 62.4% gain in the S&P 500 from the October 2022 low through Friday's close. We are still below the long-term trendline and it looks to me like we may have a few more bouts of selling before this correction is over.
Major asset class performance.
Here is a look at the performance of the major asset classes, sorted by last week's returns. The best performer was Blockchain and the worst performer was US Bonds.
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Major Indices performance
Last week the blockchain companies led the market higher, bringing the NASDAQ and small caps along with them. Emerging Markets gave back some of their recent gains.
Non-US market returns
This chart shows last week's returns for non-US markets. They have been leading the US so far this year. Hong Kong and Europe are doing well, while Brazil continues to struggle.
Equity sector performance
Tech had a great week, as did most of the market sectors. Utilities barely finished the week in the black, after a multi- month runup.
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Equity Factor Performance
This chart shows the weekly performance of equity factors like Quality, Value, Low Volatility and so on. We can see that companies with high beta were in demand last week.
Growth vs. Value
With Tech leading the way higher last week, growth outperformed value.
Commodities
The S&P Mag 7
Here is a closer look at the Mag 7. These seven stocks are still down on a YTD basis. But faith in the AI trade might be coming back.
But the big winner this week was META (META), while Tesla (TSLA) took a beating.
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The Mag 7 dominance is a drag on performance this year.
After leading the market higher for the last two years, the Mag 7 are now a drag on the S&P 500 index on a year-to-date basis. The other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 are up an average of 2.1% YTD.
Investors are cutting back on the Mag 7 stocks and looking for other potential AI winners that are trading at better prices.
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The 10 best performing ETFs from last week
The big winners last week were Silver and Blockchain. Oil had three ETFs in the top 10 list.
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The 10 worst performing ETFs from last week
If Blockchain had such a good week, why was the Bitcoin ETF the biggest loser? I think it has to do with the fundamentals of the blockchain companies as opposed to the speculative nature of Bitcoin. Over longer time frames, we see a high correlation between these two assets, but from week to week there can be lots of divergence.
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Momentum Stocks
National Vision Holdings (EYE) has rocketed higher this year but it's still way below its high water mark set in 2021. Investors want bargains right now, and Hertz is a good value play.
Final thoughts
It was a good week, following a very strong month. Can the market rise another 2.3% from here to make a new record high in the near term? Eventually it will, but there is still a larger than usual amount of uncertainty out there regarding tariffs, trade deals, and the tax bill. Trump and Xi are still fighting over tariffs, and things could go south there, which would probably delay our reaching the new high on the S&P 500.
To recap the week's action, investors were...
- Selling bonds and buying blockchain companies
- Selling Brazil and buying Honk Cong
- Selling Utilities and buying Tech
- Selling Value and buying Growth.
- Selling Gold and buying Silver
- Selling Water utilities and buying Oil