Today marks the last day of what was a strong quarter and first half for the S&P 500. The index is on pace to notch a 14.33% gain in the first half of 2021 which, behind the 17.35% rally in 2019, marks the second-best first half of a year since 1998.  So does a strong first half mean that investors will take some money off the table on this final day? In the charts below, we show the average percentage change from the prior close for the S&P 500 on the final day of the quarter/half going back to 1983.  Generally, across the last day of a quarter or a half (last day of Q2 or Q4), the S&P 500 tends to move higher for most of the session, but the final hour of trading typically sees that move get erased bringing the index down to the flatline on the day. Taking a more specific look at the last day of Q2 or the first half, the S&P 500 is usually pretty flat in the morning before taking a leg higher in the mid-afternoon. Granted, as with other quarter ends, the index tends to reverse lower at the end of the day although it finishes more solidly in the green.

With such a big move higher so far this year, we also wanted to take a look at just the years in which the S&P 500 was up double digits through the first half of the year.  As shown in the second chart below, the standard performance in those years is a bit different with a decline in the morning but a rebound in the early afternoon. We would note though, the occurrence from 1999 weighs heavy on the average.  On that day, the Federal Reserve hiked rates a quarter-point but took a dovish stance with respect to rate increases on the horizon.  That led the S&P 500 to go from a nearly 1% decline at the day’s lows to an over 1.5% gain by the end of the day.  As such, excluding that one occurrence in 1999 shows an intraday pattern that is more similar to the norm for all quarter ends with a drift lower in the final couple hours of trading.  Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

The month of June, the second quarter, and the first half of 2021 are almost in the bag. In the table below, we take a look at the best and worst performers in the Russell 1,000 month to date. For the best performers, we look at the 21 names that are up at least 25% MTD. As for the other side of the performance spectrum, we show the 20 worst performers.

Topping the list with a 75.6% MTD rally through yesterday’s close has been Virgin Galactic (SPCE).  A large portion of that has come in the past few sessions alone with a 38.87% gain last Friday which has been partially erased early this week. Given that huge one-day jump, SPCE is over 90% above its 50-DMA and as such, it is the stock that is currently the most extended above its 50-DMA in percentage terms of the whole Russell 1,000. The next best performer in the index has been a recent IPO (debuted on April 15th), TuSimple Holdings (TSP).  The stock was also up over 70% in June through yesterday’s close leaving it just off its high from June 14th. After TSP and SPCE, there is a big drop in the percent change this month as Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA) is next up with a gain of 45%.  That move has reversed some of the declines earlier in the year, although the price is still half of its 52-week high. It is a similar story for Fastly (FSLY) and Skillz (SKLZ) which are also more than 50% below their respective 52-week highs. Additionally, IOVA, FSLY and Sunrun (RUN) are the few names that are still down on the quarter even after being some of the top performers in June.

Pivoting over to the worst performers, there are 38 stocks in the Russell 1000 that are down double digits month to date. By far the worst of these has been CureVac (CVAC). Similar to how a significant portion of SPCE’s gains came from a single day, most of CVAC’s losses are a result of a 38.99% decline on June 17th.  The catalyst for that decline was the announcement that the company’s COVID-19 vaccine was only 47% effective. The next worst performers are two more Health Care stocks that plummeted on disappointing trials data: Exelixis (EXEL) and Sage Therapeutics (SAGE). Of the 20 worst performing Russell 1,000 stocks, EXEL is the closest to a 52-week low.  One of the next worst performers is the polar opposite.  Upstart (UPST) is up massively off the past year’s lows, and even after the 16.41% decline MTD, the stock is still up over 200% on the year. While many Health Care names are at the bottom of the list of month-to-date performance, one other notable theme is reopening plays.  Cruise liner Carnival (CCL) as well as multiple airlines like America (AAL) and Southwest (LUV) also found their way onto the list.  Additionally, with metals like gold and copper broadly falling off their highs after significant runs over the past year, Reliance Steel & Aluminum (RS), Newmont (NEM), and Freeport-McMoRan (FCS) are also a few of the worst performers this month.   Click here to view Bespoke’s premium membership options for our best research available.

After a sideways period of consolidation that lasted more than four months, semiconductors enjoyed a nice rally to kick off the week as the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) rallied nearly 2.5% to a record high yesterday.

Below we highlight the performance of each individual component of SMH from our Trend Analyzer.  While some stocks have clearly done the heavy lifting in the breakout to new highs, it’s pretty impressive to see that all 25 stocks in the ETF had positive returns over the trailing five days.  Leading the way higher, both NVIDIA (NVDA) and Micron (MU) have rallied more than 8%, but another nine stocks in the ETF have gained more than 5% over the last week.

Despite the more than four month sideways range for the semiconductor sector, it’s been a very good year for most of the ETFs held in SMH.  Just four of the holdings (QCOM, AMD, XLNX, and OLED) are in the red YTD, while the average gain of all 25 stocks is more than 17%.  Leading the way higher, Applied Materials (AMAT) and NVIDIA are both up over 50% while four other stocks have tacked on 25% YTD.  As a result of the big gains in the last week, the majority of stocks in the SMH ETF headed into today at overbought or extreme overbought levels, and all 25 stocks are above their 50-DMA.  Click here to view all of Bespoke’s premium membership options and for a trial to any of our tiers of service.