Stock Sector Shifts and Summer Seasonality

Last Edited by: LPL Research

Last Updated: June 04, 2024

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Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest edition of LPL Market Signals. Jeff Buchbinder here, hosting this week with my friend and colleague, Adam Turnquist. Adam, how are you today? Happy Monday.

Adam Turnquist:

Hey. Not too bad. Glad to be through the month of May and into the summer of June here in the Midwest.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yes, I'm from the Midwest, but I'm in the northeast now, and it was gorgeous. 80 degrees and sunny all weekend, so let's hope for more of those. Absolutely. So it is June 3, 2024 as we're recording this, you know, kind of mid-afternoon on Monday and markets are bouncing around a little bit, but not too far off of where we closed Friday. So here's our agenda for this week. We've got, unfortunately, the end of the five-week winning streak for the S&P and the NASDAQ. We weren't down a lot, but we were down a little. We'll recap last week. Sector shifts. So LPL Research has changed sector views on several sectors. So we'll walk you through that. Next, Adam has done some really good seasonal work, so we'll look at seasonality for the summer. You know, we know we talked about the sell in may go away, but the, you know, now we're looking at June and, you know, the time between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

So we'll get an update on that to see if there's anything for folks to worry about as they embark on summer vacations. And then next or last, we will preview the week ahead. Actually, I left out the chart check in here, Adam. We'll look at some key charts and then we'll preview the week ahead. And it's a busy week. The ECV and the payrolls probably the biggest highlights of the week, so let's get right to it. So the, you know, what was interesting about last week is we, you know, we were down intraday Friday after the core PCE inflation report. It was in line, but the market sold off anyway. Then we rallied really strongly into the close, probably related to month end, but made for a you know, a modest down week instead of something worse. So, Adam, what do you think that means technically, I guess, first of all, and then some comments on this S&P 500 chart?

Adam Turnquist:

I think technically bulls made a bit of a statement on Friday, although they waited kind of for the 11th hour. If you look at price action intraday. The last 15 minutes into the close, the S&P 500 rallied 50 points. Hard to see on this chart. It's a little bit longer term, but that intraday price action and wearables came in for support right around the 50-day moving average. And did the index still lower on the week, but it was a solid finish, not quite enough to get to those record high the record highs that we witnessed earlier in May. But overall, a pretty good rally. There'll be, it was a short one into the close on Friday. Very narrow overall, when you look at price action on the week, declining shares outpaced advancers by about three to one.

Adam Turnquist:

So it's again, more of that mega cap leadership that has lifted the S&P 500 to record highs last month. You can see some of that evidence when you look a little bit deeper into the technicals here. On the middle panel, you can see the percentage of stocks above their 200-day moving average, and then we also look at how many stocks are making new 52-week highs. So when you break out to new highs, you want to see those breadth metrics expand along with price action. And we really didn't get to see that in May. It was a little bit underwhelming on this breakout. If you look back to March, we had more stocks above their 200-day moving average and more stocks making 52-week new highs versus last month. So that divergence does suggest maybe this latest rally is a little bit susceptible to a bit of a pullback or a pause Momentum not really confirming it as well. That lower panel looks at the relative strength index. It's an oscillator to identify overbought oversold territory. Didn't even get to overbought territory amid the rally that we witnessed in May. So another spot of concern. Not necessarily suggesting that the bull market is over, but again, more alluding to maybe a pause or a pullback in price action as we move ahead to June.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah. Given how strong this rally has been this year, it makes sense to take a little bit of a breather. So it sounds like that's pretty close to how you'd characterize it. Yields were you know, down on the inflation numbers as you would expect down a little bit more today. I think part of it is on the prices paid component of the ISM came down a bit, which was certainly welcome news for both stock and bond bulls. It wasn't enough to get us higher on Monday. At least not as of the time we're recording this. But it looks like yields are cooperating, Adam.

Adam Turnquist:

Yeah, a pretty significant pullback, not just in terms of basis points, but technically here you can see this, we'll call it a relief rally for now, kind of fizzle out into last week. And as you mentioned that PCE report was a big catalyst that kicked things off. And this pullback has now pulled yields back below support from their 20-day moving average and the 50-day moving average for investors watching the market this week. You're going to want to watch that 200-day moving average right around 4.35. That actually lines up with the October 2022 highs. So a very important and support level that 10-year is hovering above right now. We start breaking below that level. It does suggest there could be some further downside risk and this uptrend is, could be over. You can see really since the start of the year, 10-year yields have been moving in a series of higher highs, higher lows. Well, that would end if we start rolling over here on the tenure. So it's going to be an important week to watch for interest rates.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah, normally we're rooting for support to hold but in this case we want it to break. That could be really interesting to watch if the 10-year yield breaks below that 200-day moving average. So we'll keep watching yields as we've been doing for quite some time. I think it's interesting to look at the interim market behavior over the last week. Now this is a five-day look, so it's not the four-day holiday shortened week. But on a five-day look, you have, I think, you know, some people think defenses are really working right and that that's where you should go, and utilities certainly have been very, very strong. And so it makes sense certainly to look at that sector and think... Okay. Maybe this rally's tired. We're going to pull back. We want be in defensives. But you know, healthcare has been a big disappointment. That's actually one of the sectors that LPL Research has downgraded this week. And, you know, staples have done okay. But not great. It just doesn't feel like it's a convincing move, you know, away from the high beta more market, you know, more volatile sectors, right? Economically sensitive sectors away to the, to over to the defenses. What do you think, Adam?

Adam Turnquist:

That's what the technicals are suggesting as well. When we look at various ratio charts comparing, for example, even the equal weight consumer discretionary versus staples, those trends have been tested, not necessarily broken at this point, same as some of the other cyclical leadership things that we look at in terms of breadth. Where's the participation? Although it's pretty narrow, it is those cyclical sectors that are leading the market higher so I think for now it's more offense over defense. But that's becoming a little bit more mixed and we'll talk about that in some of the sector changes. As you mentioned, utilities for example, outperforming. Part of that, of course, is likely due to the AI play as a lot of the data center demand. The power demand is moving capital into the utility sector, I think.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah, absolutely. You know what, something else that's really interesting about, you know, the five day look, I think is the weakness in emerging markets because it actually isn't coming necessarily from where you would think. Because we've actually seen some weakness in Latin America and the China market has held up pretty well. We still think emerging markets is an underweight, you know, so a little bit below target. It's a small allocation for most investors anyway. We still think that makes sense because of the geopolitical environment that we're in primarily and you've seen weakness in earnings in emerging markets. That's not a new trend, but we've seen it certainly in the last few months. So, you know, among international markets, we think developed as a better place to be. Japan struggled a little bit with digesting all this currency volatility. Maybe after we get through the ECB, which is likely to cut this week, that will calm down. We'll have to see. But, you know, Japan's been a little bit of a sore spot. Any observations about international markets, Adam?

Adam Turnquist:

With Japan, I think it was very overbought when we look at it. Technically it's had a significant rally breakout, so really more of a consolidation phase and you can really underpin that by what we've witnessed in the yen and some of the volatility there in terms of their interest rates. And then, of course, in China, you can see the Hang Seng saying Hong Kong underperforming over the last five days. That's really been overbought on a short-term basis so I think there's some profit taking pressure there. Of course, risk in the economic environment, of course, playing out in China. But we did get some pretty positive manufacturing data readouts last week on Friday in China. So there's some I'm going to call it green shoots, but at least signs of life, we'll call it in the Chinese economy. And the bar is set very low there as well. When you think about the bear sentiment at extreme still, I would call it, when we look at the broader Chinese equity market

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Turning to the bond market it was kind of a boring week if you look at the Bloomberg AG flat over the last five days. But, you know, under the surface it was kind of interesting and there was certainly some news, right? We had some pretty poor treasury auctions, not just last week, but that's becoming a little bit of a trend. So we'll have to watch yields maybe more closely for that reason. But we had some weakness in the muni market, which is certainly you know, something we don't typically see kind of a sleepy market generally. Anything, you know, on the bond market or other, some of these other segments, Adam, that that caught your eye, you know, either... I know we'll talk about oil in a bit.

Adam Turnquist:

I was surprised to see... Yeah, I was a bit surprised to see the egg flat just given all the headlines around the auctions. This week we'll get a 10-year and a 30-year auction, so that's going to be another closely watched auction, especially when you get longer duration that's really been struggling in terms of auction demand and really moving the market more so than previous auctions. There's some increased focus on just investor appetite, especially for those longer duration type of treasury. So that's going to be key to watch. And then of course, the yen we have to talk about where that's trading at 157, the Bank of Japan's intervene kind of in this 158 to 160 range. So if we do get the yen creeping closer to that, watch for potential job owning from the Bank of Japan or actual intervention. That's been the case the last couple times we were near these levels.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah, so for those investing in Japan, we're comfortable with the currency risk there. So being long yen feels like a more comfortable place to be, especially for long-term investors. So let's go to sector shifts. So we made four changes. Adam, I'll let you walk through these because they're highlighted in the Weekly Market Commentary, which you wrote.

Adam Turnquist:

Yeah. So we made several changes here. We will start with the upgrades. We upgraded the industrial sector from a neutral to an overweight. You can see performance for the year when you look at the S&P 500 industrials sector, mostly keeping up with the broader market. Up as of last Friday, up 6.8% year to date gave up a little bit of relative strength. We'll talk about that on the next chart. But we like it. Technically, it's been a very broad-based rally. Lots of momentum in the sector. And then thematically it's really benefited from increased infrastructure spending. Washington does seem to agree on that or had at least agreed on that when you look at some of the bills they passed over the last couple years. Of course, reshoring activity, defense spending all flows into the industrial sector. And Jeff, you made a good point as well.

Adam Turnquist:

In the Weekly, you talked about AI kind of industrials, supporting the data centers, construction and maintenance. So kind of a backdoor play, I think you called it in terms of AI. We also upgraded consumer staples to neutral from underweight. You can see its performance has really picked up over the last couple months. Part of that's likely due to some defensive rotations back in April when we got the broader market pulling back. And then of course, what we've learned through retail earnings is that consumers are a little bit more price conscious than they were over the last couple months. That's been a big trend shift along the earnings calls. You see value meals coming out at McDonald's and things like that. So I think that's helping staples on the downgrades. We took healthcare down to an underweight from a neutral, and then we also downgraded consumer discretionary to underweight from neutral.

Adam Turnquist:

And part of the healthcare downgrade was due to just some weakness in the managed care space that was largely due to, we'll call it disappointing reimbursement rates for Medicare advantage. And then lower COVID-19 payments coming in there. And then, of course, on the consumer side, the consumer discretionary side, higher inflation, higher interest rates, all weighing on consumer spending. We did see some of that in the latest economic data on Friday where we saw personal spending move lower and also revise down. So those were the big moves from our STAAC committee. And if, Jeff, you have anything to add more on the fundamentals there before we jump into the relative strength between those names?

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Well for, I mean, consumer spending maybe getting a little tired. Not collapsing. Getting a little tired. And we're probably going to see the pace of consumer spending slow a little bit more, you know, between now and the end of the year. So, you know, that's part of why we're taking the consumer discretionary weight down. It's kind of a proactive or preemptive strike, maybe you would call it. But the fact that we like consumer staples over consumer discretionary doesn't mean we're going full defensive. We still like communication services where, you know, Alphabet and Meta are, and we still like energy, which is not defensive really, although sometimes it behaves defensively. So, you know, it's really, these are more sector specific than maybe responding to a broad desire to go offensive over defensive or vice versa. So, this is cool. This is a great way to get extra charts into the publication, Adam, with a little less real estate. Four relative strength charts for these four sectors that where we've changed our views.

Adam Turnquist:

I don't think the graphic designers were happy when I added this into the Weekly Market Commentary. I was maybe warned not to do four charts again, but as a technician, of course, if anyone's going to bend the rules on how many charts you can fit in, it's going to be me. When we look at the relative trends of the sector changes, we look at the sector versus the S&P 500. So we want to understand the trend direction and trend strength when we're talking about how it's relative performances. And on the top left you have the industrial sector versus the S&P 500. As I mentioned earlier in that performance chart, it has kept up with the market for most of the year, but it did give back some relative strength over the last month. We don't think that the outperformance is over.

Adam Turnquist:

We think this is more of a pullback opportunity for some of those catalysts that we mentioned earlier. And in terms of a timing perspective, we're right at this key support level. You can see how many times this ratio chart came back down to support. A likely spot where we're going to see industrials, inflect higher, meaning we're going to see a period of industrials outperformance. So I think that one technically makes sense in terms of timing. If you move to the top right, that's consumer staples versus the S&P 500. You can see that red line, that ratio chart getting back above the red line, reversing that downtrend making a high or low. Not enough evidence right now for staples to move to an overweight, but we do think technically here it does warrant a neutral rating. And then in terms of the downgrades, you have healthcare and consumer discretionary on the bottom parts of this chart, both making fresh year to date lows remain in downtrend. You can see consistent lower highs, lower lows. Really no evidence suggesting there's going to be a trend change away from under performance for those sectors. So again, think well-timed downgrades, especially when they just recently violated some key support levels as well.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Very good. You also kind of put on your fundamental hat here a little bit for this Weekly, which you can find on LPL.com under the Research tab. Actually took a look at sector valuations and boy, tech certainly stands out.

Adam Turnquist:

Yeah, so we look back at the forward PEs across the sectors and the S&P 500, and we used the 2015 to 2019 period just as a better proxy that has less pandemic distortions for a lookback period. And then we ran the current forward PE compared it to those longer-term averages and established a Z-score. And you can see here, tech standing out with a 6.4 Z-score over that period. Of course, we know why tech is overbought or I shouldn't say overbought, but extended in terms of its valuation. AI is a big factor there. And the excitement around AI spending. The market had a 3.9 time or Z-score. Of course, we know that's expensive as well, but when we look at the sectors that we actually changed, we'll start with healthcare. I think this one really stands out because it's trading at a pretty big premium to its history despite the relative underperformance.

Adam Turnquist:

We just showed that ratio chart in a steady downtrend. So you're really not getting paid at all to own healthcare. It's not a value play, at least by forward PE multiples. So I think the valuation argument supports the downgrade there. And then on the Staples side, you can see pretty much in line with its historical average, more toward a neutral type of waiting, we'll call it. Discretionary also looks relatively expensive considering the performance you're getting there. And then last, is just the industrials at 3.1 on a Z-score. And we think a little bit of a premium there is warranted for some of those reasons we outlined before in terms of infrastructure spending, defense spending, and then of course the AI as well.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah, the healthcare is really interesting. The earnings have weakened fast enough to keep the sector expensive despite the underperformance. That's... It's really fascinating. And election season probably does not help so could be sloppy sector for a while. So that's really interesting stuff. So we got a couple of other charts here, Adam, I know you want to share. And this kind of gets at the whole narrow leadership argument that a lot of the bears are still making.

Adam Turnquist:

Yeah, I wouldn't go into the bear camp, but we have to highlight the fact that the equal weight index on top here, that's the S&P 500 equal weight index, so every stock, as the name implies equal weighting, never broke out to new highs. It failed to get back to that March high. You can see a little bit of a lower high here. So there's a divergence between the market cap weighted and the equal cap weighted, and that's really suggesting just that narrow leadership theme that we're seeing kind of reignite itself with some of the mega caps kicking back in gear. When we compare the actual equal weight index to the market cap weight index on the bottom panel, this ratio chart here was holding above a very key support level. Goes all the way back to the pandemic era lows. But we actually broke below that support level, suggesting more toward large cap leadership is really back in gear. We are potentially watching for an inflection point here. When you get those inflection points on this ratio chart that often overlaps with value leadership, a shift more towards small caps. I think this chart is telling us for now, it's likely going to be a large cap show at least for the foreseeable future until we get any type of definitive trend change in those ratio charts.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah. So this makes us comfortable sticking with a slight preference for growth over value. But that is one that we're watching real closely because, you know, valuation certainly favor value and you have this potential for broadening to favor value as well if tech slows down. So we didn't mention the OPEC+ meeting over the weekend yet, but, that was certainly something we thought might move oil and it looks like it. It did, namely South.

Adam Turnquist:

It did. I think the surprise was clearly to the downside. So OPEC+ announced over the weekend, they're starting to unwind their production cuts at the end of the third quarter. Market expectations were for those cuts to go through the rest of the year, so through the fourth quarter. So that, I guess we'll call it a bit of a disappointment there in terms of when they're going to start curtailing those output restrictions. And you can see the reaction here for WTI crude oil. It's really been a process here because we've broken down through this rising price channel. We're already below the 200-day moving average and now we're breaking to new multi-month lows here on WTI. Of course, the big question now, how low can this go? When you look at support levels and how oversold things are. Realistically, we could go back and retest those December lows,

Adam Turnquist:

June or last summer's lows. Kind of in the 68 to $70 barrel, not too far from today's levels right now. And you can see short positions on the bottom panel. This is actually looking at Brent Oil. This is a little bit more active in terms of short positioning and it was at about a 12-month high going into that OPEC+ meeting. And what we've learned over the years is the OPEC cartel does not like shorts into those meetings. And a lot of times they've caught them off guard, surprised the market to try to pretty much put on a short squeeze. They didn't do it at this time. So I think there was some expectations. There'd be some type of fireworks here. More bullish. But for now it looks like the shorts won this on at least a shorter term basis.

Adam Turnquist:

And then lastly, if you think about oil, its inflation impact and its relationship to treasury yields, we included the correlation to the 10-year in the middle panel. You could see it's increasingly positive. What we've witnessed here is oil already breaking down. Treasury yields have not. I think this could be potentially a tell where tenure yields are headed as we approach some key support levels. Because as we show here, oil prices often inflect ahead of yields. And if you go back to last summer in the gray or black lines, that's the price of WTI, the bright blue is yields. And at these key inflection points, you'll often see oil prices move ahead of yields. That was the case during those lows of 2023. Also the highs of 2023. And again, you can see now WTI breaking down 10-year yields not quite there yet, but I'll be watching this carefully and I do think it does at least lean a little bit more towards some downside pressure in yields just based on this relationship that's increasingly positive in terms of correlation data.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah. We want yields a little bit lower not because of economic growth weakening, but because of lower inflation. And so certainly this, by the way, you know, Biden administration released more into the strategic of the strategic petroleum reserve or announced that they're going to do that. That's putting downward pressure on oil as well. That is a key election factor. So we're going to be watching oil really closely as we watch inflation. As we get closer to the election. We've got some election charts in here too. So seasonality, you know, of course, with the Trump conviction, it kind of elevated the attention that people are paying on the election, on the polls and some of the market patterns and influences depending on the candidates. So interested in you walking through this. I'm sure many of our listeners are as well, but first you just started with the basic seasonality study in June.

Adam Turnquist:

Right. So we looked at all of the June returns for the S&P 500 going back to 1950. You can see it's a pretty underwhelming month average median returns for the market right around 0.1% higher 55% of the time. That doesn't stack up well when you compare it to the rest of the months. And even when you have a positive May in the market, I was a bit surprised by those returns are about the same average median right around 0.1%, 63% positive. So those hoping for the May momentum to continue might be a little bit disappointed here in June. May was up almost 5% for the S&P 500. That qualified for the seventh best May since 1950. And what looks a little bit better or more constructive is returns for the rest of the year. You can see from June to through December average and median returns call it 5, 6%, but when May is positive, you can see those bump up a little bit with the median return at 6.8% from June to December, higher 73% of the time. So seasonal suggests we could see longer term momentum into year end continue for this bull market.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Not quite sell in May go away. Next question. How does the election affect seasonality?

Adam Turnquist:

So this looks at the progression of the S&P 500 going back to the 1952 election all the way to 2020. Average election year returns in the bright blue there. You're up 7.3%. Of course, we're well above that at this point of the election year. And when you have a reelection year, so as we are in 2024, average returns there up 12.8%. Same thing with a democrat incumbent. You're up about 11%. But for now, in terms of the progression here, you do get your seasonal dip during election years. You can see from kind of August through October, you get a bit of a pullback. I think that alludes to the uncertainty surrounding the election. And then of course, that end of year type of rally, it's a bit more, we'll call it a little bit more pronounced or consistent when you look at election year seasonality as we move into to year end here.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah. We've gotten most of this typical performance already year to date. So that suggests, I mean it's going to be tough. We'll need some good news to add much to gains in the second half. Hopefully we can outperform this pattern and add a few points and you know, end higher than that 12.8%. But certainly the election uncertainty will likely create some more volatility. And I mean this is certainly related to that. So here, Adam, you're looking at how the market has responded to essentially the polls. We're looking at the betting markets, but essentially polls of whether you know, Trump's in the lead or Biden's in the lead. So what does all of this tell you?

Adam Turnquist:

All right. So let me... There's a lot of lines and data on this chart, so let me walk you through it quick. Top panel is the S&P 500. We added that for context. And the panel below that looks at thepredicted.org odds for former President Trump, and, of course, President Biden. Right now, President Biden's about 47%. Former President Trump is at 51%. You can see how those have changed over the last several months. And we took that data and ran a correlation analysis to the S&P 500 to determine each candidate's correlation to the market. And in the panel in the green, we'll call it, that's former President Trump's correlation to the broader market, which has interestingly enough become increasingly positive really since he started to surpass President Biden in terms of election odds. You can see kind of in the March, early April, timeframe Trump's odds surpassed 50% also above Biden's.

Adam Turnquist:

And that's really when the correlation data started to increase. Contrast that to President Biden's correlation to the market has largely remained negative really since February. That's in that bottom panel. So I guess the message here is the market seems a little bit more as the stronger relationship to President Trump or former President Trump's odds of winning the election. Of course, all of this data comes with a caveat that correlation does not imply causation. And that's a big caveat and I think it's been an interesting relationship to watch here with the market and how it's reacted at least so far to some of the headlines surrounding the conviction on the Friday news for Trump.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah. It's important for people to keep in mind, you know, the election's still way off and the economy still matters more in terms of folks casting votes than, you know, Trump's legal troubles. So that's for a second, even if you knew who was going to win, it's really tough to predict how these policy changes are going to unfold, right? Because a lot of this is just proposals political theater that'll never get into, you know, become law. So you know, we know elections are always uncertain politics. Always great uncertainty. But here, I mean there's just as much, even if you think maybe you know how things might play out, which certainly, you know, I think some people probably do have conviction that they know how this is going to play out. So let's move on and preview the week, Adam.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

That's a lot of interesting stuff there. The ECB is going to cut it looks like on Thursday, and that's unusual that they, you know, cut before the before Fed does. But that looks like that's what we're looking at. I would argue that if they do cut on Thursday, that that makes the Fed maybe a little bit more comfortable with their cut, whether it's September, whether it's December. I would argue that's going to increase the odds that we do get at least one cut this year post ECB. The jobs report obviously is a big one. That's Friday, the day after the ECB. Any anything there or in any of this other data that you think will be important, Adam?

Adam Turnquist:

The ISM services index should look interesting because it dipped into contractionary territory last month. You can see 49.4 expectations are for that to increase back to expansionary to territory, but that crisis paid component 59.2 that jumped significantly higher last month. I think the market's going to welcome any type of slowdown in that service spending gauge. So we'll be watching that, of course, along with the Friday's payroll report. That's going to be a big one.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

Yeah. Good point. Hopefully, that average hourly earnings number, the wage number in the payrolls report cooperates because that certainly can influence rates. And then here you see the prices paid ISM manufacturing number, the 57, I guess it's the fourth row down. Not only was that two points better than expectations, but it was actually about four points better than the prior month. So certainly rates fell on that news. You know, maybe that can start a little bit of a trend here, or maybe it started on Friday with core PCE that the inflation data could behave a little bit more. Hey, we're getting not just price cuts on your McDonald's value meals, but Target and Walmart are doing price cuts too. We're hearing more of that. We saw it from the Fed that they highlighted in the Beige Book that people are pushing back on higher prices.

Jeffrey Buchbinder:

The rental rates have come down. Real time rental rates. It hasn't shown up in this data yet, but they are coming down. There's a lot of reasons to think inflation will cooperate. It's just frustratingly sticky. So that continues to make us comfortable holding equities here at our at our target weights. LPL Research remains neutral. So I think with that we'll go ahead and wrap. So thanks everybody for joining. Thanks Adam for a lot of great insights there. We hope everybody has a wonderful week and kicks off their summer in style. We'll talk to you next time. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening to LPL Market Signals.

In the latest LPL Market Signals podcast, LPL Financial’s Chief Equity Strategist Jeffrey Buchbinder and Chief Technical Strategist Adam Turnquist, recap a choppy, news-heavy week for stocks, discuss several changes to LPL Research’s sector views, highlight some key charts, and provide some summertime seasonality statistics.

Stocks sold off last week, ending the five-week winning streaks for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite. Despite some improved recent performance for defensive sectors, particularly utilities, the strategists do not recommend full-on defensive positioning at this time.

The strategists discuss the technical setup for the S&P 500 and why the latest rally to new highs has been a little underwhelming below the surface. They also assess what the recent breakdown in crude oil could mean for 10-year Treasury yields. Finally, following an unseasonably strong May for stocks, the strategists examine seasonality trends for June.  

The strategists also discuss recent sector recommendation changes this month, reflecting shifting technical and fundamental trends. LPL Research upgraded industrials to overweight from neutral as relative strength is near a potential inflection point and the sector benefits from infrastructure spending and reshoring activity. Improving relative strength and a more price conscious consumer supports an upgrade of consumer staples to neutral from underweight and as excess savings dwindle, a corresponding downgrade of consumer discretionary to underweight. Healthcare was also downgraded to underweight due to lackluster relative strength and elevated valuations.

Last, the strategists preview a busy week ahead including Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting and Friday’s jobs report.

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This material is for general information only and is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. There is no assurance that the views or strategies discussed are suitable for all investors or will yield positive outcomes. Investing involves risks including possible loss of principal. Any economic forecasts set forth in the podcast may not develop as predicted and are subject to change.

References to markets, asset classes, and sectors are generally regarding the corresponding market index. All indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment and do not reflect fees, expenses, or sales charges. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Stock investing includes risks, including fluctuating prices and loss of principal. Bonds are subject to market and interest rate risk if sold prior to maturity. Bond values will decline as interest rates rise and bonds are subject to availability and change in price.

High yield/junk bonds (grade BB or below) are not investment grade securities, and are subject to higher interest rate, credit, and liquidity risks than those graded BBB and above. They generally should be part of a diversified portfolio for sophisticated investors.

Any company names noted herein are for educational purposes only and not an indication of trading intent or a solicitation of their products or services. LPL Financial doesn’t provide research on individual equities. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.

The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, or the Agg, is a broad base, market capitalization-weighted bond market index representing intermediate term investment grade bonds traded in the United States.

All index data is from FactSet.

All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.

This Research material was prepared by LPL Financial, LLC. 

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