Will S&P 500 Extend Its Purple Patch? Most Retail Traders Brace For Negative Returns In August

Coming off a strong July, the market has gotten off to a volatile start in August, as concerns about President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which are set to take effect later this week, and interest rate worries temper the broadly upbeat mood seen on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 Index, a measure of broader U.S. market performance, gained 2.2% in July, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.7%. The Nasdaq 100 Index, which tracks the performance of 100 of the largest non-financial technology stocks, has increased by 2.4%.

This underlines the recent trend of the tech space leading the broader market higher.

The Russell 2000 Index gained a more modest 1.7%. Although there has been participation from smaller-cap names, the degree of optimism toward these stocks is far more muted.

So far this year, the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the Nasdaq 100 Index and the S&P 500 Index, have advanced 10.6% and 8.3%, respectively.

As the market grapples with macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, retail traders have become less optimistic about the market continuing to rise.

An ongoing Stocktwits poll that asked users for their views on S&P 500 returns for August showed that most were braced for a negative performance (41%).

A quarter of the respondents (25%) still hoped for the S&P 500 to rise by more than 5% in August, while 18% expected a 2%-5% advance, and a slightly lower 16% anticipated a flat performance to a gain of about 2%.

Morgan Stanley Equity Strategist Matthew Wilson said Friday’s weaker jobs report, combined with a Federal Reserve that is on hold, could be the beginning of a consolidation phase. The strategist, however, said Morgan Stanley would be a buyer of pullbacks and is bullish about the next 12 months.

In Tuesday’s early premarket session, the QQQ and SPY edged up 0.17% and 0.10%, respectively, with sentiment showing ‘neutral’ during the early premarket session.

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