Technical Stock Market Briefing for Day & Swing Traders
| By Harry Boxer, Technical Market Analyst
Stocks Consolidating Near Record Highs
Stocks held near record highs set last week, aided by strong performance in the energy and industrial sectors that helped offset the risk-off sentiment driven by tariff headlines.
The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ finished with fractional weekly declines as they slipped from record levels set the previous week. The modest setback followed a two-week run of positive results that sent the S&P 500 more than 5% higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index held up best.
For the first half of 2025 both the NDX & SPX gained about 6.5%. The trailing Russell 2000 finally edged into the plus side finishing +.21%.
Mega-Cap Concentration & Market Leadership Shifts
NVIDIA hit the $4 trillion market capitalization threshold for the first time, helping put the “mega” in the so-called Magnificent Seven group of mega-cap stocks.
The market remains somewhat top-heavy, but the Magnificent Seven are now behind the lead pack. There’s lots of concern about hefty concentration associated with the Magnificent Seven within the S&P 500, and given their size, they’re large contributors to index gains. But they’re not the best performers. In fact, no Magnificent Seven stock is in the top 10 year-to-date performers, and only three of the seven are outperforming the S&P 500.
Surging Commodities and Sentiment Risks
The price of the most widely traded cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, climbed above $118,000 for the first time on Friday, posting a weekly gain of around 9%. Less than three weeks earlier, Bitcoin briefly slipped below $100,000.
The price of copper surged 13% to a record high on Tuesday after the Trump administration announced a 50% tariff on copper imports to the United States. Silver futures also rallied, posting a weekly gain of around 6% as the metal climbed to the highest price since mid-2011.
A market warning sign is that lower quality, speculative pockets of the market have led the advance off the early April lows, which has helped push aggregate measures of investor sentiment back into extreme optimism territory. This is often seen at or near market tops and although it could continue for a while longer, it should certainly be a cause for caution for traders.
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