Nvidia helped the stock market storm back, but this summer’s broadening theme never went away

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) is back near all-time highs.

A recent rally in tech, including a nearly 30% pop in Nvidia (NVDA), has helped bring the index up more than 7% since its Aug. 5 bottom.

In that time, the "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks — Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA), and Nvidia (NVDA) — have added more than $1.4 trillion in market cap, nearly half of the S&P 500's $3.2 trillion market cap gain since Aug. 5.

After a massive drawdown in July, the recent surge helped bring the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) out of correction in 11 days, marking its shortest correction since October 2011.

Ned Davis Research chief US strategist Ed Clissold recently told Yahoo Finance that given how tech led the losses in the drawdown, it "makes sense that they're going to rebound."

And now, some of the largest names in the sector are sitting back near 52-week highs ahead of a crucial earnings report from Nvidia on Aug. 28.

During second quarter earnings season, some of Nvidia's AI-powered rivals offered a mixed bag of results that struggled to live up to Wall Street's expectations.

"This would be the ninth day in a row the S&P is up," Niles Investment Management founder Dan Niles told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday. "It's the longest streak since 2004. I wouldn't necessarily be pushing that into an Nvidia print.

"But I think if you're not worried about what happens the day after and you're thinking about this over a multiyear period of time, it should be in pretty good shape."

And while the AI trade has once again been leading the market's latest leg higher, there have been promising developments under the surface at play too.

The S&P 500 equal-weighted index (^SPXEW), which is less influenced than the cap-weighted S&P by moves in Big Tech, just hit a new record high. Sectors including Utilities (XLU), Consumer Staples (XLP), and Health Care (XLV) are now sitting at 52-week highs, while Financials (XLF) are currently at a record level.

"This has been a really healthy rally in our view," Abby Yoder, JPMorgan US equity strategist, told Yahoo Finance. "It has been this broadening out. Breadth is the best that it's been since the summer of last year. In terms of the participation across different sectors, different names."

Still, the S&P 500 is up almost 18% this year, outpacing the equal-weighted index's nearly 9% this year.

"The reality is that in bull markets, all sectors typically go up," said Kevin Gordon, senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab.

In July, Gordon's team at Schwab pointed out in Yahoo Finance's Chartbook that the amount of S&P 500 companies outperforming the index on a rolling two-month basis had fallen to a historic low.

Since then, that narrative has fully flipped. As of Monday's close, roughly 58% of members in the S&P 500 were outperforming the index, the largest swath of outperformance since November 2022, when the current bull market began.

"The trend is much more important," Gordon said. "Across those metrics, things look relatively healthy."

Recent economic data has showed a slowing, but still growing, US economy, and market action over the last few weeks is in line with the soft-landing-fueled broadening out trade strategists have been discussing since the start of 2024.

And though tech will likely still contribute to the rally, JPMorgan's Yoder said the rotation in other areas could have more room as the "growth backdrop does look healthy and we're about to embark on a Fed [interest rate] cutting cycle as well."

Josh Schafer is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X @_joshschafer.

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