The stock market closed modestly higher last week for its fifth consecutive weekly gain, once again led by the defensive Dow Jones Industrial Average, up 2.3%. Although any positive weekly close is good, it’s important to note that the tech-heavy Nasdaq nand small-cap Russell 2000 showed the smallest gains and are the only major U.S. indices still in negative territory for 2016. #-ad_banner-# Since these indices typically lead in a healthy and sustainable market advance, I will continue to view the broader market rally with some skepticism until they start doing so. Every sector of the… Read More
The stock market closed modestly higher last week for its fifth consecutive weekly gain, once again led by the defensive Dow Jones Industrial Average, up 2.3%. Although any positive weekly close is good, it’s important to note that the tech-heavy Nasdaq nand small-cap Russell 2000 showed the smallest gains and are the only major U.S. indices still in negative territory for 2016. #-ad_banner-# Since these indices typically lead in a healthy and sustainable market advance, I will continue to view the broader market rally with some skepticism until they start doing so. Every sector of the S&P 500 finished in positive territory last week except for health care, which lost 2.6%. In the March 7 Market Outlook, I pointed out that the biggest sector-related outflows over the previous one-week and one-month periods, according to Asbury Research’s proprietary metric, came from health care. This fueled the sector’s recent relative underperformance. As the table below shows, investors have continued to pull assets from health care for better perceived opportunities in other sectors. For instance, energy received the biggest inflows in the past one-week and one-month periods. Health care has been the weakest sector… Read More