Major U.S. indices were essentially unchanged in a week that featured a lot of day-to-day volatility but not much directional movement. When markets move in a sideways range, as the U.S. stock market has been doing since February, it indicates temporary investor indecision. #-ad_banner-#These periods of indecision almost always lead to the next meaningful directional move, which is precisely where the market finds itself heading into this week. The big question is: “Which way from here?” That is the focus of this week’s report. At the sector level, financials and consumer staples were last week’s best performers. The recent strength… Read More
Major U.S. indices were essentially unchanged in a week that featured a lot of day-to-day volatility but not much directional movement. When markets move in a sideways range, as the U.S. stock market has been doing since February, it indicates temporary investor indecision. #-ad_banner-#These periods of indecision almost always lead to the next meaningful directional move, which is precisely where the market finds itself heading into this week. The big question is: “Which way from here?” That is the focus of this week’s report. At the sector level, financials and consumer staples were last week’s best performers. The recent strength in financials, which are up 1.9% in the past month, has been driven by the spike in long-term U.S. interest rates amid a steepening yield curve. Both of these factors will help make banks more profitable. The weakest sector last week was energy, which lost 0.9% and is down 4.5% over the past month. This has been driven by a strong outflow of investor assets, according to Asbury Research’s own metric, as shown in the table below. The biggest inflow of investor assets over the past one-week and one-month periods went into the financial sector. Stocks Need… Read More