Notes Along the Path: Market Update for week 24
Market Recap |
WEEK OF JUN. 10 THROUGH JUN. 14, 2024 |
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The S&P 500 index rose 1.6% this week, reaching new highs, led by the technology sector. The market benchmark closed Friday's session at 5,431.60, slightly below its record closing level of 5,433.74 reached on Thursday. The S&P 500 also hit a new intraday high on Wednesday at 5,447.25. It is now up 2.9% for the month to date and up 14% this year. Strength in the tech sector drove this week's climb even as the Federal Open Market Committee reduced its expected number of 2024 rate cuts to just one. The policy-setting committee kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged on Wednesday and updated its Summary of Economic Projections to indicate only one rate cut is now expected for this year, down from three forecast in March. The technology sector jumped 6.4%, followed by a 1.2% rise in real estate and a 0.9% climb in communication services. Consumer discretionary also edged higher. Broadcom (AVGO) shares led the technology sector's rally, jumping 23% on the week as the chipmaker lifted its full-year revenue outlook on the back of a better-than-expected fiscal second quarter, buoyed by artificial intelligence demand and VMware software. Also boosting the technology sector, shares of Oracle (ORCL) rose 9.7% as the software maker gave an outlook for annual growth in its fiscal first-quarter revenue and earnings and announced cloud partnerships with OpenAI and Google, even though results came in lower than expected in the preceding period. On the downside, energy fell 2.3%, followed by a 2% drop in financials, a 1.2% decline in consumer staples and a 1% loss in industrials. Other decliners included materials, health care, and utilities. The energy sector's decliners included shares of APA Corp. (APA), which fell 3.6% amid an investment rating downgrade from analysts at Evercore ISI to an in-line rating from outperform. The firm also cut its price target on APA's shares to $39 each from $52.
Bond MarketThe bond yield curve continues to normalize very gradually. As you can see below, the 1-year rate is slightly lower than a year ago, and the longer-term rates are all up slightly. Is this taking longer than I had hoped? Yes. But let's just enjoy that we can get CDs and treasuries paying over 5% even if we can't get quite that high of a rate for 3 years or more. |
