S&P 500 Continues To Hit New Highs: Techs Outperform
4:10 pm Tuesday, June 29th, 2021
The S&P 500 hit a record high for the fourth straight session, helped by technology and banks stocks, and a government survey that showed U.S. consumer confidence in June hit its highest since the pandemic started.
Interestingly, the S&P 500 briefly touched the 4300 levels on the back of modest gains from the value and cyclical stocks, which struggled yesterday, and key support from Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Value stocks have since given up their early advantage over the growth stocks, as the Russell 1000 Growth Index (+0.2%) now outperforms the Russell 1000 Value Index (-0.1%). The S&P 500 financials (-0.1%), energy (-0.1%), and materials (-0.02%) sectors — which are typically lumped in the “value” category — trade lower after being up by least 1.0% today.
The S&P 500 information technology sector (+0.6%) has assumed the leadership role due to Apple, Microsoft, and a handful of semiconductor companies like Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The utilities (-0.9%) and communication services (-0.5%) sectors underperform in the red.
The intraday rotation wasn’t catalyzed by any specific news and has transpired despite the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index reaching its highest level since February 2020 at 127.3 (consensus 120.0).
There might be lingering angst about peak growth rates due to the Delta Covid variant and some uncertainty about the U.S. infrastructure proposal. If there are growing concerns, the Treasury market isn’t harboring them since the 10-yr yield is up two basis points to 1.49% amid an uptick in selling interest.
Separately, many of the large banks increased their dividends after yesterday’s close, as widely expected. Citigroup (C) was an exception.
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 127.3 in June (consensus 120.0) from an upwardly revised 120.0 (from 117.2) in May. June marked the highest level for the index since the first pandemic surge in March 2020.
