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Portfolio > Economy & Markets

S&P 500 Now Up 10% This Year With Big Tech Rally

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A renewed rally in tech giants extended this year’s surge in the S&P 500 to 10% as bond yields fell ahead of Friday’s jobs report amid bets the Federal Reserve will pause its interest-rate hikes in June.

After a brief respite in the colossal advance of big tech fueled by the artificial-intelligence frenzy, the cohort is back in full force. Nvidia Corp. climbed over 5%, leading gains in the Nasdaq 100.

Aside from the obsession for anything AI-related that drove megacaps up 17% in May, the group also got a lift after weak factory data spurred a slide in Treasury rates.

“One can rightly ask how many more ‘Mays’ we can have, where U.S. big tech is almost the only place to find outsized positive equity returns anywhere in the world,” said Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research. “The old Keynesian saying that goes, ‘markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent’ feels especially relevant in the current investment environment.”

The S&P 500 rose about 1% on Thursday, reclaiming its 4,200 mark. A contrarian indicator from Bank of America Corp. that compiles Wall Street strategists’ allocation recommendations is the closest it has been to notching a “buy” signal since 2017.

The gauge yields an expected return of about 16% for the US the equity benchmark over the next 12 months.

‘Extremely Nimble’

To Matt Maley at Miller Tabak, no matter how bullish investors might be about the potential for artificial intelligence, they should be prepared to weather corrections along the way.

“Investors will need to be quite careful, and extremely nimble, after these recent parabolic advances,” Maley said. “Sometimes, the deep corrections are long-lasting, like we saw after the dot-com bubble burst. Sometimes, they only last for a few weeks and are followed by new, very strong rallies that take the stocks even higher.”

The tech rebound also pushed C3.ai Inc. off its session lows, with the AI software firm paring a plunge of 24% by about half. Broadcom Inc.’s results after the closing bell are set to be the next indication on whether the industry’s rally has gotten ahead of itself after multiple analysts cited the potential for AI-fueled revenue growth.

In other corporate news, Salesforce Inc. fell after the software company gave a lackluster outlook for sales. Dollar General Corp. slumped as the discount retailer slashed its annual profit forecast. Nordstrom Inc. gained after the department-store chain’s quarterly revenue and profit came in slightly ahead of estimates.

Jobs, Fedspeak

Aside from the AI theme, traders also geared up for the monthly jobs report on Friday, with forecasters projecting a moderation in the pace of hiring that could potentially allow the Fed to pause its tightening policy in June.

Fed Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said “we should at least skip this meeting in terms of an increase. In an essay Thursday, his St. Louis counterpart James Bullard, said he believes interest rates are at the low end of what’s likely to be sufficiently restrictive to bring down inflation.

Meantime, the Treasury is considering postponing its regular three- and six-month bill auctions “tentatively” scheduled for next Monday if constraints around the statutory debt limit remain.

Senators scrambled Thursday to agree on a plan for swift consideration of the debt-limit deal forged by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ahead of a June 5 deadline to avert a destabilizing default.

(Image: Adobe Stock)

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