This is Tracey Ryniec, Senior Stock Strategist, filling in for Kevin today.

Stocks came roaring out of the gate after the three-day Memorial Day holiday weekend on hopes that a deal in the Middle East was imminent. This was the same hopes as last week, however, but it does seem like there is progress being made in getting to a point where the Strait of Hormuz may re-open. In the last few days there have been fewer tweets from Pakistan, which had been mediating, and more official on the record comments from Secretary of State Rubio.

Oil fell over the weekend on these hopes and is trading at one-month lows on WTI. There has been some relief in the last few days at the gas pump in some states, which should help consumers. However, energy stocks, especially the large Big Oil companies like Exxon and Chevron, took it on the chin yesterday as oil stocks were the worst performing group.

The AI stocks remained in focus with Micron and Sandisk jumping to new highs yesterday. Some are worried that this is too much, too quick in the storage stocks. Eventually, there will be a break in the action on both. Pullbacks are healthy in a bull market environment. Look for opportunities elsewhere in the AI stocks such as with obvious plays like NVIDIA, which reported stellar earnings last week, but the stock is not even trading at new highs.

Treasuries also eased off recent highs. It was enough to please the stock bulls who pushed up the NASDAQ, S&P 500, and the Russell 2000, the small cap index, to new record highs.

It's encouraging to see the Russell 2000 hitting new highs because it has lagged the large caps the last several years. It's up 16.8% year-to-date. While some of its top holdings, by weight, are AI stocks like Bloom Energy, there are too many stocks to have an overweighting in just one or two high-fliers. The stock rally is broadening. That's what we like to see.

Earnings season is winding down but there are still some key companies yet to report, mostly in technology and retail. Three key technology companies will report today after the close in Salesforce, Marvell, and Snowflake.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on the AI infrastructure stocks. With the hyperscalers expected to spend over $700 billion this year on AI investments, that's real money that is going somewhere. It's working its way through the manufacturing economy. Someone is building the data centers, someone is cooling them, someone is powering them.

I'll see you again tomorrow,