The Major Markets had another week of green for the holiday shortened trading week. All five indices closed higher with the Dow standing as the leader.

Monday closed out June and the first half of the year. For the S&P 500, the month added another 4.96%. This brought the total for the index up to 5.5% for the first half of the year. In other words, the losses from February through April were effectively recovered in May, with the majority of the gains of the year added in June.

At the sector level, we see that the returns have been positive overall but with losses in Consumer Discretionary, followed by Health Care and Energy. Consumer Discretionary has been weighed down in large part by the losses in some of the biggest constituents in the sector. The biggest hindrance on the performance has been Tesla, which closed out the first half of the year with a loss of 25%. 

Tesla has suffered at least in part due to negative sentiment around the company due to Elon Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration this year. That said, as has made the news in recent weeks, Musk and Trump have had a falling out, especially as the Big Beautiful Bill was making its way through Congress. Last week, President Trump signed the bill on July 4th.

In other News, the June Employment Report was released Thursday. The report beat expectations with 147,000 jobs reported. This also came in higher than the prior month’s reading of 144,000. The results further cemented the likelihood of rates holding at the 425 to 450 level for July according to the CME Group Fed Watch Tool. That said, September continues to hold the greatest promise of the first rate cut of 25 basis points.