Let's bring in Eric Criscuolo, market strategist here at the big board, for his take on today's tape and much more.
My man, welcome in.
Happy to be here always.
So I actually look at the Russell.
I mean, we were red all day.
We just maybe depend on the final tape here, eked out fractional gains, but really what a big story that has been the outperformance of small caps relative to the S&P 500.
What have you seen so far knowing tomorrow is the final trading day, I believe, in the first half of the year?
Yeah, I mean, it is amazing to know that.
We always talk about the mega caps, the huge tech stocks that are driving the S&P 500 higher, but then you look, like you said, the Russell 2000, the smallest caps, the smallest companies in the United States, and they're doing great, right?
And so it just kind of shows you how, you know, this kind of rally that we're seeing to strengthen the equity markets, it's relatively broad based, so it's not just the mega caps that are holding water, it's basically everything underneath them also that are just seeing incredible gains right now.
What are you seeing with regards to the overall resiliency in the market shaken off?
No shortage of maybe negative headlines that might otherwise bring about a knee-jerk reaction.
Investors saying, yeah, all right, on to the next one.
We had a war with Iran.
We had oil go to, you know, well over $100 120 dollars.
Before that we had, we did a reordering of global trade with tariffs, and all the S&P 500 did was go higher and higher and higher.
The market is incredibly Resilient a number of reasons why, but that also kind of starts to bring in more and more of the, when do we hit a top, when do we see a correction.
We're not seeing it yet.
Every time we dip, there's buyers that come in, buy the dip, and drive us higher.
So the market has wobbled, loans have rotated, sectors have come in and out of favor, but everything kind of keeps going higher.
So that's kind of what we're seeing still.
But it does beg the question of how far, how long does it last.
Well, we know how far, how long this week will last.
Only 4 trading days given the 3 day holiday weekend.
What do we see?
Yes, no, none of us are.
What do you see with regards to volume?
Maybe usually a lighter than average, knowing we're also coming off that huge rebalance, that reconstitution Day on Friday, but not a whole lot going on this week.
Yes, it's interesting to come off, like you said, a huge Russell rebalance, huge volumes on Friday, last Friday.
We come into the July 4th week, shortened week, so you know, traders.
Start heading to the Hamptons.
Desks get light.
Activity generally slows down a lot, but that also can induce a lot of volatility.
You know, news flow on the tape.
There's not a lot of traders that are taking either side, so you could see a lot of heightened heightened volatility even if volumes themselves are relatively low.
So that is definitely one thing to keep an eye on, especially with the quarter ends.
I want to get your take on rotation.
Halfway through the year, tech, energy, industrials, the best performers year to date, but the last 4 weeks, healthcare and financials are higher.
Up two of the top 3.
What do you make about not necessarily seeing the people that are usually leading the pack doing all the heavy lifting?
Yes, it kind of goes to what we just said a couple of minutes ago where, you know, everyone says, you know, tax leading higher, mega caps, blah blah blah, but then you see the XLV, the healthcare sector, the financial sector, these sectors that have lagged for a while now, not just this year, but over the several years, especially healthcare, they're starting to get a bid, you know.
Lilly is now a $1 trillion company, right?
So, so all these areas that these sectors are big enough to absorb flows coming out of tech, and they could easily go into healthcare.
They could easily go into financials to keep the rally going from kind of underneath tech if things wobbled up there.
So it's a healthy kind of rotation to see these sorts of things.
Very strange.
We've got a jobs report on a Thursday, but given the 4th of July holiday, we will get it.
Is your sense?
Be big enough to move the needle or knowing it is ahead of that 3 day weekend, maybe the type of thing investors kind of say, meh, shake off and put their attention towards places like the Hamptons.
I think that's more likely to happen.
You know, the labor market has shown a lot of fantastic data coming into it.
We've seen all the weekly jobs reports, the initial claims, they've all been solidly low level continuing claims.
Low level, you know, even some of the ancillary reports are just point to a very strong labor market.
And so I don't think a lot is expected to kind of move the needle on the jobs report on Thursday.
That being said, the biggest moves happen when people don't expect a big move.
So we'll see what happens.
All right, the great Eric Coscolo, market strategist here at the Big Board, my man, thank you for being here to kick off a week.
Nice Happy Fourth of July if I don't talk to you.
There you go, my man.
We will talk to you soon.
