The benchmark S&P 500 Index had its best quarter since 2020. It did so with help from the Magnificent 7 and the technology sector, but other areas also participated. That was a good thing.

 

For the last few years, the handful of stocks that make up the MAG 7 have done most of the heavy lifting in keeping markets positive. In the last six months, the story has changed. A lot more stocks participated in the gains, and some believe that this broadening out of upside participation will continue in the second half of the year.

 

Here are some of the numbers: Dow +13 percent, Nasdaq +21.4 percent, S&P 500 +14.9 percent, Russell 2000 +21 percent, and the equal-weight S&P +11 percent. The Mag 7 gained 18 percent. And while technology was the clear winner, helped by strong gains in the AI-fueled semiconductor index, industrials, consumer discretionary, financials, healthcare, and communications also posted significant gains.

 

This performance becomes even more significant considering what investors have had to face since January. Topping the list of worries was the Trump War and subsequent explosion in oil prices. Inflation accelerated, expectations of Fed interest rate cuts reversed, and rate hikes became a possibility. Rounding out the list was the new Fed chief, who took over and sounded more hawkish than most expected.

 

Supply chain disruptions caused by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz sent oil, fertilizer, natural gas, and other essential products higher. The worst performers were among last year's best. Gold, silver, and most other precious metals and basic materials lagged the markets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and just about all other cryptocurrencies also ended in the red, by substantial amounts. If a market ever had to scale a wall of worry, this was it!

 

As readers know, artificial intelligence plays fueled much of the technology sector's gains. However, stellar earnings results across the board in equities consistently beat analysts' expectations. The quarter has ended and with it the last few days of window-dressing by institutions. Every quarter, money managers want to show their clients that they hold the latest winners while few of the losers.

 

At the same time, the beginning of July (before and after the Fourth) is normally positive for the markets. This year, with the nation's celebration of its 250th birthday, the bulls may want to push prices a bit higher. So be it.

 

The economy is still growing, and employment, while plateauing, is holding up. Now that oil prices are declining, inflation should begin to decelerate over the next few months. The non-farm payroll data helped the markets along on Thursday, the last trading day of the week. The U.S. labor market added just 57,000 jobs in June while the unemployment rate dipped to 4.2 percent. That was well below estimates. If you consider that, on average, payroll data inflates job gains by about 60,000 jobs per month, the real number after revisions may have been a job loss.

 

Why that would be good for financial markets lies in the Fed's equations for full employment and reduced inflation. Kevin Warsh, the new Fed head, said Wednesday ,while speaking on a European economic panel, that the inflation data was a little better than expected recently. That is largely due to the swift decline in oil prices.

 

Now, we have a weaker jobs number. The calculus of investor expectations on whether the Warsh-led central bank will raise interest rates suddenly looks less likely. That's all the markets needed to see on a slow day where most of the Street has already taken off for the beach, mountains, or backyard BBQs.

 

The S&P 500 Index is holding up despite a wobble in tech. That is because of the rotation trade. Healthcare, financials, industrials, consumer staples, even real estate and utilities are getting a bid. I noticed that some of the bloom is coming off the technology sector. AI memory stocks are getting clobbered. The semiconductor trade is faltering as well. Technology overall is in its ninth or tenth day of volatility, with more lower highs than higher highs. That is a worrisome sign.

 

As for the three-day holiday celebrating America's 250th birthday, enjoy it where you can. Hopefully, a pond, lake, or ocean is close by. Otherwise, be grateful for air conditioning!

 

Traders took profits in the red-hot technology sector. That money has been flowing into areas like healthcare, housing, and industrials. That's a good thing since it keeps the downside somewhat in check.

 

Professional money managers always stress that a proper portfolio should be well-diversified, so that no one individual sector can overwhelm your long-term performance. Under that strategic investment case, as one sector gets extended (like technology has), money flows out of high-priced stocks and migrates into other areas that are cheaper but still have good prospects.

 

Most readers know that the MAG 7 stocks have an enormous weighting in the S&P 500 Index. This has been going on for a long time, and the result has been that many U.S. funds have some exposure to this handful of stocks. It's called concentration risk. Right now, for various reasons, these stocks are out of favor.

 

There are two ways this can work itself out. A bout of profit-taking can take the equity indexes down all at once, causing a sharp decline, or the money leaving tech can find its way into other sectors and stocks. That's called rotation.

 

In addition, within the technology sector, the AI trade has not only led the area higher but, in many cases, has pushed valuations to stratospheric levels. When an entire sector is dependent on the earnings announcement of a handful of stocks, or this week just one, Micron Technology, the risk is somewhere in the stratosphere.

 

In this case, Micron, an AI memory play, topped earnings expectations for the quarter, sending the stock price up more than 15 percent. For the bulls, Micron seemed to dispel worries that the AI infrastructure investment case was faltering. The company told investors that revenues were expected to climb by 346 percent year over year and earnings after adjustments were $25.11 per share, versus the Street's expectations of $20.60.

 

That gave investors a reason to stampede the averages higher, with the Nasdaq posting a more than 2 percent gain on Thursday's opening. It didn't last long. Traders took the opportunity to sell down even more of the highflyers. To me, when markets sell off on good news, you should pay attention.

 

In any case, markets managed to hang in there. They did so because the flow of money out of tech rolled into healthcare, banks, industrials, and other sectors. Markets were also supported by the continued decline in the oil price. Oil fell below $70 a barrel. At one point, as investors decided to turn the page on Trump's War. It seems clear that Trump's War will have significant downsides for the U.S. and the world at large.

 

Despite Trump's denials, both Oman and Iran plan to charge as much as $40 billion per year to travel through the Straits of Hormuz. That will hurt Europe more than the U.S., since it imports a lot of Middle Eastern oil through the Straits. Thanks to Trump's short-sighted war, Iran has realized they have a far greater weapon in their hands than simply nuclear reactors — control of the Straits. They now control, at their whim, a global economic lever that can hold the nations of the world hostage.

 

As for the U.S., when you cut through the BS, it seems clear that the Trump administration is willing to pay billions of dollars to the Iranians, free up billions more in frozen Iranian assets, and that's just to get them to agree to a ceasefire. There has been no regime change other than to solidify the position of the anti-American Revolutionary Guard and install a hardline cleric of the same family as supreme leader. As for their nuclear ambitions, so far, nothing concrete has been agreed upon. Yes, the tiny Iranian navy, and even smaller air force and missile defense, have been decimated, but at what cost? Failure would be a generous term to describe this war.

 

On a macroeconomic level, however, the damage has been done, according to the latest Personal Consumer Expenditures (PCE) data for May. The PCE hit a three-year high, rising 4.1 percent up versus the 3.8 percent increase in April. Given that the PCE is the Fed's preferred inflation index, investors know that the data dashes any hope for a rate cut. It also keeps the possibility of a rate hike very much in the forefront.

 

I believe the prospect of immediate interest rate hikes is remote at best, as I expect inflation to slow over the next several months. The May data did not capture the ceasefire, the reopening of the Straits, nor the subsequent drop in oil prices. The recent decline in oil prices from $112/bbl. to $69 /bbl. just adds further confidence to my slower inflation forecast.

 

As such, the prospect of a slowing but still growing economy seems quite good. I do not expect interest rates to go higher in the near term either, which appears to offer a pretty good scenario for stocks going forward. That does not mean up, up, and away.

 

The period before mid-term elections is usually volatile, and this one appears no different. Equity valuations near record highs, profit-taking in tech, the summer doldrums, and an unhappy populace are not conducive to another near-term equity run-up.

 

Over the last two weeks, I have been warning readers that a period of consolidation was in the cards. The July-August period seemed an ideal time for this to occur. I guess some traders are getting ahead of the pack by selling this week.

 

The price of oil is now trading at only $10 a barrel above its pre-war level. A new Federal Reserve chief zeros in on combating inflation, and investors celebrated by pushing stocks toward all-time highs.

 

The 14-point agreement between Iran and the U.S. to a 60-day ceasefire and the opening of the Straits of Hormuz sent oil prices plummeting below $75 barrel and prices at the pump below $4 a gallon. Traders are betting that the Straits stay open and that the reopening will be swift.

 

And yet, overnight on Friday, hours after the supposed agreement was announced, Israel and Hezbollah were already in renewed fighting in southern Lebanon. Talks between the U.S. and Iran were called off on Friday. Iran insisted the fighting must stop before talks can take place. Evidently another ceasefire was announced shortly after the talks were canceled.  

 

I won't waste much space on this fragile deal struck between the two sides. Let's just say it is a long, long way from Trump's April threat that "a whole civilization will die tonight." Readers can judge for themselves whether Trump's War is an inept and embarrassing mistake or the "victory" the president claims.

 

What else could one expect? Trump's posturing over the deal adheres to his long-held strategy of attack, deny, and then claim victory over and over again. It seems to me, after reading the agreement, that tiny Iran did get the better bargain overall. Their ability to call off talks whenever they want shows strength not weakness in the negotiations.

 

The good news is that the 60-day reprieve avoids the July deadline. That was when oil inventories were projected to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, possibly sending oil prices skyrocketing.

 

The Fed met this week as well. It was Kevin Warsh's debut as the chairman of this august body. His message was short but not so sweet. He argued the market's entire approach to interpreting the Fed's messaging needs to undergo a rapid sea change. He said the central bank has been over-explaining, over-signaling, and overly focused on fine-tuning the economy. Instead of a dovish message about future monetary policy easing, the Trump appointee sounded quite hawkish. Nine out of 18 of the bank's top officials believed at least one interest rate increase would be appropriate this year.

 

Inflation, he said, was the focus right now. He reiterated the central bank's long-held target of keeping inflation below 2 percent. The fact that the Fed has not achieved that target after five years of trying would need to be addressed. The markets took that to mean interest rate hikes were coming. The only question is when.

 

Yet, as I see it, inflation will come down over the next few months, driven by sharply lower prices for oil, agricultural products, and other commodities. That I believe will alleviate the present fears that a period of tighter monetary policy is right around the corner.

 

Switching gears to the markets, at the end of the first week of trading for the largest IPO in history, SpaceX has done well for investors who paid the $135 offering price. To be sure, the initial public offering was only a small slice of the company, about 5 percent compared to a typical IPO that will offer anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent of its shares in the initial offering. The resulting float is small, but bankers felt it necessary to keep the risk of market disruption at a minimum. Given its overall valuation of roughly $2 trillion, that strategy made sense.

 

Confounding the nay-sayers, the price of the sock soared this week, hitting a high of $213 before some of the inevitable profit-taking set in. Those who chased the stock are getting hurt. The last I looked, the stock had fallen to a low of $172.11 before rebounding to $185 on Thursday.

 

Last Friday, the day of its debut, SpaceX set records for the largest single-day net retail buying of a large-cap U.S. stock since 2018. It accounted for 56 percent of all retail net buying on Friday, according to Vanda, an independent data and research firm.

 

In addition, at least 40 actively managed Exchange Traded Funds are now holding the stock in their portfolios. The company's shares are expected to be added to the Nasdaq 100 index as of July 6, meaning that all passive ETFs and index funds that track the index will have to buy the stock. After that, sometime in September or maybe December, it will be included in the Russell 1000.

 

In a similar fashion to last week, the volatility of price movements among the major indexes continues. Technology, specifically anything connected to semiconductors, is in a FOMO mania. Aside from tech, industrials, materials, real estate, and financials have broadened out. 

 

It appears we are in a blow-off phase for stocks overall as they celebrate the expected opening of the Straits and the flow of additional oil. It is possible we could recapture the record highs before the end of the month.

 

Thursday marked the 39th time that the president has announced a deal with Iran. One of these days, it will come true. Until then, expect continued volatility in the markets.

 

His decision to back off his threat to increase this week's series of military air strikes on Iran triggered yet another rally in the stock market. The fact that the markets all recovered on Thursday what they had lost on Wednesday highlights the heightened volatility in financial markets.

 

For those watching this ceasefire circus, the news from the White House came after markets had already soared on Thursday. It is just another example of how those closest to government decision-makers continue to profit day after day by advance warning of the news. Back when, this would have been considered insider trading. Today, it is simply another way to repay loyalty and favoritism.

 

This time, the deal being discussed is nowhere near a final agreement. The idea would be to extend the non-existent ceasefire by two months. During that time, the two nations would then try to negotiate a more substantive agreement. As usual, interpretations of the supposed terms of the deal widely differ. The Iranians deny that any agreement has been reached or signed.

 

Just hours later, the president once again posted on social media, accusing Iran of leaking the terms of the U.S. deal. He says that their statements "bear no relation to the truth." He concludes by posting, "They better get their act together, and FAST." At this point, my view is that when the world has proof that the Straits of Hormuz are open to traffic on a consistent basis, I will believe real progress has been made.

 

Skipping to more substantive issues, the SpaceX IPO finally arrived today, Friday, June 12. It appears that all systems are go. At 10:30 a.m., SpaceX shares were indicated to open at $150 per share. That is well above the IPO price of $135 per share. The deal was reported to be 4-5 times oversubscribed, as institutions and retail investors sought to get in on the largest initial public offering of the year.

 

The ebullience around the Musk-powered technology company has influenced investors' psyche and should not be underestimated. As for me, I am immune to IPO hype and will watch the action from the sidelines.  I suspect SpaceX may carry the markets for at least a few days. That would give technology and AI stocks time to repair after their recent declines.

 

My previous guesstimate that we would see a 5 percent pullback in the S&P 500 Index came close (4.5 percent as of Thursday). The Tech-heavy NASDAQ did much worse, falling almost 10 percent with some smaller stocks dropping 20 percent or more. A quick bounce back would not surprise me over the next few days. July and August are what concern me.

 

I recognize that the themes that have carried the markets to new highs thus far this year have been twofold. Better-than-expected economic growth and higher earnings. Is there more of the same ahead, or have we seen a peak in these trends, at least in the short term?

 

If I were a betting man, I'd wager on a summer of discontent for investors at least through August. I know betting against the crowd is always dangerous and never popular. And yet it's just what I do on occasion.

 

A look at the bond market, which I believe is where the adults hang out, indicates we have seen a peak in the trend of higher yields. The benchmark U.S. Treasury 10-year bond reached 4.67 percent but has since dropped to 4.5 percent. That is at my level where I worry about further upside in stocks.

 

All along the yield curve from the short to the long end, I am starting to see yields stall out. That's important, especially in the face of inflation and the never-ending need for more money to finance the country's continued spending spree. Credit-sensitive areas are also coming under pressure. What, therefore, would make bond traders slow their selling of U.S. debt?

 

It could be that we are seeing the peak in inflation, at least for now. As readers know, I have been on the side of higher inflation for the entire year. This week's Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index both justified that position. However, I'm thinking the next month's set of data points might show inflation a bit lower than the increases we have seen thus far.

 

Another sign may be that the prices of inflation hedges like gold, silver, copper, and steel have also peaked and are declining even amid strong inflation numbers. I also noticed that cyclical stocks have been on a decline. Equity areas such as industrials are weak, and emerging markets, including China and especially commodity countries, seem to be experiencing profit-taking.

 

Readers should remember just how serious a continued shutdown of the Straits would be for oil prices if nothing is done to increase supply before July. That's a little over two weeks away. Markets are flirting with all-time highs. From a purely price perspective, volatility in markets always increases when markets are at the bottom or the top. Maybe I am being overly cautious or just tilting at windmills, but if storm clouds gather, you will be first to know.

 

The non-farm payroll numbers for May, announced on Friday, were met with dismay by the market. The consensus forecast was for a gain of 89,000 jobs. Instead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced 172,000 and revised the last two months of jobs data upward. Together, that amounted to the strongest three-month stretch of job growth in two years.

 

You might think the stock market would celebrate such good news, but all three averages declined more than one percent on the news. This was a classic case of what is good news for Main Street may not be the same for Wall Street.

 

It comes down to interest rate expectations. Investors had already reduced their expectations for any interest rate cuts this year. This is despite a new Fed president whom many believe is beholden to the president's easy-money demands. The reasons are obvious.

 

Inflation continues to climb, helped by oil prices that hover above $90 a barrel. On June 10th, another Consumer Price Index reading will be released. Readers already know I expect that number to show inflation climbing even higher. And now, the last hope of interest rate bulls has been dashed with the jobs report.

 

The Fed's mandate is to keep employment buoyant and inflation at 2 percent. Stronger labor gains leave the Fed on the sidelines, but it is worried about rising inflation. Some members of the FOMC committee, which meets June 16-17, are already contemplating a possible rate hike sometime in the future. That is not good news for stocks, bonds, commodities, and much else.

 

In the meantime, the financial media has been hyping SpaceX's pending IPO all week. Evidently, the price has been set at $135 a share, which values the company at $1.77 trillion. It would make the rocket/AI/Bitcoin firm the seventh-largest company in the U.S. Pricing the offering prior to the scheduled launch date was unorthodox and "not how it's done," according to the traditional underwriting community. However, given that Elon Musk is in charge, one should expect some unorthodoxy.

 

As for the market's pullback this week, it should come as no surprise. It was about time. Nine straight weeks of gains had to come to an end at some point. Profit-taking began midweek and continued through Friday. Most of it was centered on the technology area.

 

Broadcom, one of the largest semiconductor companies, disappointed investors earlier this week when its AI chip forecast fell short of expectations. That seems to be the straw that broke the market's back. That may be so, but I believe traders were looking for any excuse to take profits.

 

As for the ongoing embarrassment in the Middle East, even Trump's congress seems to have had enough. The Republican-controlled House passed a continuing resolution this week directing Trump to end the war in Iran. The extended ceasefire continues to play out and oil remains above $90 a barrel.

 

I expect we will continue to see selling next week as markets work off their overbought and extended condition. Is this simply another buying opportunity, or is it the beginning of something more serious? I wish I knew.

 

 At this juncture, I'm betting on a quick 5 percent pullback. That's something we see three or four times a year. The decline has been largely led by semiconductor and AI stocks. That makes sense given those are the areas that have seen the greatest price appreciation. Who knows, the pullback may set us up for next Friday's SpaceX IPO and reinvigorate the tech trade.