The month of July usually is the strongest month of the year, measured by the seasonality of the past 98 years, with an average return of 1.13% for the S&P 500 and an average return for the Stoxx 600 of 1.10%. While the European market held its premise, large-cap US equity indices came under pressure as the Semiconductor Index SOX dropped a stunning 27.30%, to close the month down 20.56%. The low for the month in US indices happened on the 30th of July, when Kevin Warsh, the

The past month saw a pause in the equity rally, with most market indices trading flat or slightly down. The biggest difference was made by small caps, as the Russell 2000 traded up 3.70% while large caps, measured by the S&P100, dominated by big technology companies, lost 2.79%. Looking at sectors and industry groups, industrials gained 7.23% followed by healthcare up 6.57%, while the communication sector lost 7.18%, followed by energy down 5.00%. Industry groups saw even lar

Equity markets went completely haywire, which can happen, but once again, we did not expect it to happen in 2026. Both the presidential election cycle, as well as the decennial cycle did not have such kind of behavior in the cards. Markets enjoyed two tailwinds: First, the US government is selling crude oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserves like never before. The US spent 40+ years building the SPR to 700 million barrels as a buffer against exactly this kind of supply sho

During the past four weeks, the market celebrated a furious comeback, and the portfolio was caught off guard. While we argued that technology was running into trouble, the total opposite happened. We argued that big investors, primarily hedge funds, have been unloading tech stocks, which is partially true, but not to an extended degree. It took until mid-May to access all the data and to make sense of it. So, what have the biggest funds been doing during the past quarter? The

In the financial industry, the end of the quarter is an important event. For large U.S. funds managing more than $100 million, it is not necessary to provide public holding reports on a monthly basis, but on a quarterly basis. Whalewisdom, a website that provides data and enables clients to screen fund allocations, is currently tracking 4269 funds. The data clearly provides the fact that most are overweight technology, especially the Mag7 companies. The end of quarter trade h

During the past four weeks, we have witnessed record inflows for European equities, pushing the already extended Stoxx 600 index to new record highs. Now the market looks even more exuberant, and we can’t change our view that such a setup will be difficult to stomach in the coming weeks. The S&P 500 remains in a trading range, and as previously mentioned, the outperforming sectors cannot fully compensate for the weakness we are seeing in large cap technology stocks as well as

During the past four weeks, equity markets were able to capitalize on seasonality, which is usually bullish for the month of January. The performance of the Stoxx 600 (+3.07%) was driven by ASML Holding, which gained more than 30.00% and lifted the Dutch AEX 5.29%. The Swiss Market SMI underperformed (-0.60%) together with the German DAX (+0.20%). Another positive outlier was the UK FTSE 100 (+2.94%), which saw strong gains in the industrial and materials sectors. As mentione