Since the bull market kicked off in late 2022, the S& P 500’s gains have been driven by a handful of mega-cap tech stocks. After widening earlier this year, the number of stocks leading the market’s advance has narrowed again lately, alarming some investors. The S&P 500 would be down over the past 30 days, for example, if all the stocks were given the same status. Instead, the market-weighted index is up 4%. The 10 biggest stocks recently represented 36.8% of the index’s total value, the highest since September 2000, according to FactSet.
Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company on Tuesday, overtaking tech heavyweight Microsoft, as its chips continue to play a central role in a race to dominate the market for artificial intelligence. Shares of the chipmaker climbed 3.5% to $135.58, lifting its market capitalization to $3.34tn, just days after overtaking the iPhone maker Apple to become the second most valuable company.
Singapore returned to the top spot in an annual ranking of competitiveness among 67 countries compiled by IMD, a business school. The city-state last topped the poll in 2020. Switzerland came second and Denmark, last year’s champion of efficiency, came third. America dropped three places to 12th spot. China climbed seven places to 14th.
The S&P 500 has notched its 30th record close of 2024, closing out the session on Monday at 5,473. In fact, the index is now up a whopping 15% only six months into the year, resulting in an additional $5.5T in market capitalization. A lot is going for U.S. stocks at the moment, with things like rising corporate profits, cooling inflation and an upcoming Fed easing cycle, as well as historically low market volatility, a likely soft landing, and of course - the notable AI rally.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies is down 17% from its November 2021 peak and has made no progress at all this year.
The US federal budget deficit is expected to swell to around $1.9T this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which was higher than its previous estimate of $1.5T. National debt is poised to top $56T over the next 10 years, or 122% of GDP, surpassing the 106% seen in 1946 after World War II. Meanwhile, the eurozone is facing debt issues of its own, with the ECB warning eight of its members - including Belgium, France and Italy - over their excessive budget deficits.
Federer won 80% of his matches but only 54% of the points in those matches. On a daily basis over the past 100 years or so, the S&P 500 has been flat or up roughly 54% of the time, just like Federer. With dividends reinvested, the total return since 1927 jumps to a staggering 1.3 million percent.
