Stocks headed into the long holiday weekend on a quiet note.
As a reminder, both the stock and bond markets are closed Monday, June 19, in observance of the Juneteenth holiday.
Following a busy few days that saw more signs of easing inflation and a Fed pause, today's focus for those who stuck around was on the latest consumer sentiment data.
The University of Michigan said early Friday that preliminary results showed its index of consumer sentiment jumped to 63.9 in June from May's 59.2 reading. "Consumer sentiment lifted 8% in June, reaching its highest level in four months, reflecting greater optimism as inflation eased and policymakers resolved the debt ceiling crisis," the report said. However, the survey also indicated that "a majority of consumers still expect difficult times in the economy" over the next 12 months.
iRobot pops as U.K. clears Amazon acquisition
In single-stock news, Virgin Galactic (SPCE) jumped 16.5% after the space-travel firm said it will start offering commercial space flights later this month. "We are cautiously encouraged by the company's progress and more concrete timeline for its initial commercial launch in late June, causing us to raise our target multiple," says Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Charles Minervino (Neutral, the equivalent of a Hold). "However, the history of delays keeps us somewhat skeptical of SPCE's ability to ramp commercial activity."
Elsewhere, iRobot (IRBT) surged 21.2% on Amazon.com (AMZN, -1.3%) buyout buzz. Last August, the e-commerce giant said it will buy the Roomba maker for roughly $1.7 billion, including debt. Today, the potential merger cleared a major regulatory hurdle when the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority said it will not lead to competition concerns. The deal is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
As for the major market indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% to 34,299, the S&P 500 shed 0.4% to 4,409, and the Nasdaq Composite gave back 0.7% to 13,689.
All three benchmarks extended their weekly win streaks to three for the Dow, five for the S&P 500 – its longest since November 2021 – and eight for the Nasdaq, its longest since March 2019.
FedEx earnings, Powell testimony on deck
Looking ahead, quarterly earnings reports from logistics giant FedEx (FDX) and Olive Garden parent Darden Restaurants (DRI) should draw some attention in the holiday-shortened week, as will Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's semi-annual testimony before Congress. Powell said last week that the next Fed meeting should be a "live" one, meaning the central bank might resume interest rate hikes when it convenes in July.
Use tech ETFs to ride market's momentum
With just a couple weeks left in the first half, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are poised to enter the second half on impressive footing. (The Dow is positive for the year-to-date, too, but up just X%, compared to 15% and 31% returns, respectively, for the other two.)
While plenty of media attention of late has centered around the fact that the bulk of these gains have come as a result of outsized returns from only a handful of mega-cap tech stocks, history shows that "on a long-term basis, a small number of stocks always drive most of the market's returns," says Dan Burrows, senior investing writer at Kiplinger.com.
As Burrows explains in his column "What's So Scary About a Mega-Cap Tech Bull Market?," research by Hendrik Bessembinder, finance professor at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, shows "that if it weren't for narrow breadth, we wouldn't really have any returns at all."
Investors looking to ride the market's momentum can certainly target the best stocks from the tech sector, but a lower-risk approach would be to consider tech ETFs, which spread the risk across dozens, if not hundreds, of companies.
