The S&P 500 is only slightly short of reaching a new historical record

The American market looked much better today than it had the day before. Yesterday‘s session was also good in terms of profitability, but weak in terms of the breadth of participation; today it was different: the results were even more impressive, and the participation was much broader.

The number of rising securities exceeded the number of declining ones by more than four times on the NYSE and more than twice on the Nasdaq. A positive profit report and forecast from Micron (MU 126.00, -1.25, -0.98%), whose shares have increased by 107% since April 7 before the release of the report, set the tone for the session.

Additional support was provided by hopes for easing monetary policy after the publication in the Wall Street Journal of information that the President is considering the possibility of announcing a successor to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell as early as September or October, even before the end of his term in May 2026.

A strong report on durable goods orders for May and encouraging data on the number of initial jobless claims for the week ending June 21 gave the session an additional boost, offsetting the negative impact of the GDP revision for the first quarter.

The communications services sector (+1.8%) was the leader of the day, but cyclical sectors such as energy (+1.5%), consumer durables (+1.2%), industry (+1.1%) and materials (+1.1%) were ahead of the market, driven by continued growth in megacorporation stocks.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 0.9% due to the growth of Marvell shares (MRVL 79.97, +4.04, +5.32%) and Broadcom (AVGO 270,17, +5,52, +2,09%), bringing the growth since the beginning of the quarter to 29.8%. NVIDIA (NVDA) also participated in the growth. 155,02, +0,71, +0,46%).

Although megacap stocks were doing well today, small and medium–cap companies really shone: the Russell 2000 index rose by 1.7%, and the S&P Midcap 400 index added 1.3%. The S&P 500 index came close to setting a new all-time high: for this, it needed to exceed the 6,147.43 mark, but it only reached an intraday peak at 6,146.52. The close was also slightly below the record.

Our American FTinvest 11 portfolio today managed to overcome the weakness that has plagued it since the beginning of the week and returned above the 760 level again. The total gain for the day was 1.14%, the index ended the day at 764.98.