Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The chase is on for a new record closing high for the S&P 500. The number that will get it done is 6118.72. The all-time high, reached January 24, is 6128.18.

The market seems to like the reciprocal tariff plan, which is being deemed better than feared since it will be imposed on a "case by case basis," according to the president, versus a sweeping universal implementation. It could get to that, but that doesn't appear to be the starting point.

Now, there is some chasing action, driven by a fear of missing out on further gains, and possibly some short-covering activity that is carrying the indices northward. 

Strikingly, there are only three S&P 500 sectors that are actually outperforming the market today. The real benefit is that one of them is the information technology sector (+1.5%), which has a 31.39% weighting in the S&P 500. The other two sectors are materials (+1.6%) and consumer discretionary (+1.4%).

Gains for the remaining eight sectors are all less than the 0.92% increase for the market cap-weighted S&P 500.