The S&P 500 slipped in June even as industrials, health care and financials rallied, splitting the index by sector. Applied Materials led the month’s gains, and analysts made material positive revisions to target prices on several technology stocks.
The S&P 500 declined 1.06% in June, but the headline number hid a wide gap between winners and losers across sectors.
Sectors pulled in opposite directions
Industrials led the way, gaining 7.19%, followed by health care, financials and utilities with advances of 6.46%, 4.22% and 2.44%. On the other side, communication services fell 7.86%, while energy, consumer discretionary and technology dropped 5.14%, 4.78% and 3.33%.
Individual technology stocks topped the leaderboard even as the technology sector fell overall. Applied Materials rose 61%, the best performer in the index, ahead of KLA at 57% and Moderna at 48%. Marvell Technology, Fifth Third Bancorp and Corning followed with gains of 45%, 44% and 41%.
Analysts lifted technology targets
Beyond June’s price moves, several technology stocks drew sharp upward revisions to their average analyst target prices. Hewlett Packard’s target climbed 126% to US$68.60 from US$30.33, and Micron Technology’s target rose 116% to US$1,563.83 from US$722.49. Dell Technologies, NetApp and Jabil saw target increases of 96%, 51% and 40%.
Reporter Jennifer Dowty cautioned that extreme target prices can mislead. When a stock falls, analysts may hold bullish expectations, inflating the forecast return, and a single outlier can skew an average when few analysts cover a name.
Earnings estimates keep climbing
Even so, earnings expectations continue to rise. Year-over-year earnings growth is anticipated at 26.6% in 2026 and 17.6% in 2027. The forward four-quarter price-to-earnings multiple stood at 20.2 times, a lower valuation than the 21.6 times recorded on May 29, according to the July 2 LSEG report. For the first half of 2026, the S&P 500 rallied 9.55%.
Source: The Globe and Mail
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