Midday Sector Check
Indices are higher at midday. S&P up about 0.6%. Nasdaq leading with a 1.1% gain. Russell up 0.84% — small caps continue to catch a bid.
What's working:
- Semis are ripping. The chip names are extending Friday's bounce hard. NVDA +3.5%, AMD +3.6%, AVGO +4.7%. SOXL is catching a bid and acting like last week's selloff was just a shakeout. Oracle upgraded to Buy and running +11%.
- Big tech broadly green. MSFT +2.9%, PLTR +6.9%, TSLA +2.4%, META +2.9%, GOOG +0.8%. APP continues to be a monster at +15%.
- Gold holding above $5,000. PBoC bought for the 15th straight month. China reportedly telling banks to diversify away from Treasuries. That's a structural bid under metals. Dollar weakness (DXY near 97.3) is adding fuel.
- Financials and Energy still catching rotation flows. The "Great Rotation" theme is alive. JPM, GS seeing inflows as the yield curve steepens. Energy quietly outperformed everything last quarter (+16%).
What's not:
- Software remains under pressure. INTU -1.2%, ACN -2.5%, ADP -2.4%. There's a clear split happening — AI infra names (chips, power, data centers) are being bought while the software layer is being sold.
- AAPL fading at -2.2%. Sticking out as a notable laggard in an otherwise green mega-cap tape.
- Healthcare is red. MRK -3.7%, AMGN -2.7%, ABBV -5%, LLY -0.6%. Broad weakness across pharma and biotech.
- Treasuries flat but the China headline is the one to watch. 10Y at 4.21%. The "sell America" narrative from China curbing UST exposure could become a bigger story if it persists.
Big picture: VIX crushed 18% to 17.76. That's a big sentiment shift from last week's jitters. But we've got NFP Wednesday and CPI Friday, so don't get too comfortable. The data-heavy back half of the week could easily reverse this calm. Stay nimble.
'Scott
