We're all on the NVIDIA Train Image: Bigstock This is Tracey Ryniec, Senior Stock Strategist and Editor of the Value Investor and Insider Trader portfolios, filling in for Kevin again today. You can't keep a good bull down. Yesterday, the major indexes started the day in the red but finished in the green, thanks mostly to the Magnificent 7. 5 out of the 7 stocks finished higher yesterday with NVIDIA gaining 1.3% and hitting yet another new all-time high. There doesn't appear to be anything stopping NVIDIA. There were pictures yesterday of CEO Jensen Huang signing autographs and fans calling him a "rockstar" on social media. Momentum is building, that's for sure. But all the good times in the big cap indexes are masking the troubles in the small caps. The Russell 2000 fell sharply yesterday and has been weak so far in June. Pullbacks and sell-offs are normal in every bull market. When will there be one in the big cap indexes? Is JOLTS Signaling a Soft Landing? Yesterday, the BLS JOLTs report for April came out and there were no surprises. It's great when this report is boring. Job openings fell again, to 8.06 million. That's the lowest since Feb 2021. But while it's going in the wrong direction for job seekers, this is what the Fed wants to continue seeing. Part of the inflation story was wage inflation which was due to too much demand for workers, and not enough supply. Job openings were at a record high in 2021. Quits soared too as workers had dream-like labor market conditions. However, many of the pandemic job openings have faded, tightening the labor market. It's likely the job openings will return to around 7 million which was the trending level in 2019, before covid threw the economy for a loop. Additionally, layoffs are at their lowest level since Dec 2022 and quits were at 2.2% for the 6th consecutive month. Quits have stabilized. The jobs data has been steadily normalizing back to pre-pandemic levels. There has been no big employment shock to the economy. Even layoffs are now trending lower as well. That's the very definition of soft landing. More Economic Data and NVIDIA ISM for Services and ADP employment report are the big data out this morning but Mr. Market seems to be looking beyond the economic data this week. The news out of NVIDIA has been bullish indeed. And as long as THAT story is a good one, look for the big cap indexes to continue to ride the AI wave. It's been a pleasure chatting with you this week. Regards, Tracey Ryniec Stock Strategist, Zacks Investment Research |
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