Market Update

Highlights include:

• In July, the market experienced a shift in stock performance leadership with small-cap and value-oriented stocks gaining the most on average.
• While the S&P 500 Index of the largest U.S. companies returned slightly over 1% for the month, the Russell 2000 Index of small companies climbed 10%.
• In the month, the large-cap Russell 1000 Value, which returned 5%, outperformed the Russell 1000 Growth by 6 percentage points—the widest monthly margin since March 2001!
• With only a few mega-cap stocks producing most of the market performance in the first half of the year, many investors began searching for undervalued opportunities.
• In addition, the July inflation report boosted investors’ confidence that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates later this year.