Market Digest: ROK, DD, SW

Argus

•

Jul 03, 2025

Summary

Tuesday, July 1, offered an interesting view of investor behavior on the first day of a new quarter. What do certain investors do on that first day? The opposite of what everyone was doing over the past couple of months. They sell the winners (in this case mega-cap Information Technology plays and Utilities that are benefiting from the buildout of AI and data centers) and buy stocks that have been ignored in recent months. On the flipside, something familiar to any cagey long-term market participant is called 'window dressing' and is when 'smart money' portfolio managers and mutual funds raise their stakes in stocks that have outperformed during the quarter and cut their positions in stocks that have underperformed. In this strategy, the holdings in the portfolio look more attractive to investors. This time around, the best sector on the first day of the new quarter was Materials (XLB), rising 2.6%. Reviewing the technical ranking of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500, XLB sits in the middle. But the industry within the XLB that did the best was paper, which has one of the lowest technical scores possible. Aluminum also had a good day and has a low score. Healthcare (XLV) was in second place and also ha