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Small-Cap Russell 2000 Leads Another Up-Day in the Market

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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Markets kept moving higher this Thursday, with the small-cap Russell 2000 leading the major indexes for the 4th session in the last 5. The Dow also performed fairly well today: +192 points, +0.43%, while the S&P 500 was up +17 points or +0.27% and the Nasdaq +19 points, +0.09%. The Russell gained +10 points for the session +0.48%.

The Russell 2000 has been playing catch-up of late, as large-cap AI/tech stocks listed on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 have led the market for nearly all of this year so far. But in the past month, the Russell is +5%, while the other major indexes hover around +4%. It’s still off all-time highs reached 3 1/3 years ago, but the small-caps have outgained the field of the past month or so.

Without much reining in animal spirits in the market these days, we continually see higher and higher markets. This is even with a trade deadline having come and gone and precious few trade deals with any U.S. trading partners helping light the way forward. We seem to be both having our cake and eating it too these days.

Levi Strauss Beats in Q2


Iconic American apparel company Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI - Free Report) reported earnings for its fiscal Q2 after today’s close, and were ahead of the Zacks consensus estimates: earnings of 22 cents per share outshone the 14 cents estimated by analysts, while $1.4 billion in revenues surpassed the $1.37 billion we had been projecting. (You can see the full Zacks Earnings Calendar here.)

Gross margins for LEVI hit a record +62.6% for the quarter, with comps for the Americas up +5%, net revenues in Europe +14%, and Asia flat. Direct-to-Consumer was +11% in the quarter. All in all, a good quarter — one that justifies its current jump +7% in late trading on the news. The stock is up an additional +14% year to date.

What to Expect from the Stock Market Tomorrow


There will be no economic reports Friday, and no earnings reports worth writing home about tomorrow either. We look ahead to next Tuesday, when not only Consumer Price Index (CPI) data will be out, but also Q2 earnings reports from some of the biggest Wall Street banks such as JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) , Citigroup (C - Free Report) and Wells Fargo (WFC - Free Report) .

The banks are expected to perform well, as assets under management are at record highs, while investment banking has performed well across the board with markets at or near all-time highs. The three major banks reporting Tuesday all are currently at Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Meanwhile, the CPI Inflation Rate from last month’s report was at a 12-month low +2.3%, +2.8% on core. These are about as close to what we’ve seen to the Fed’s optimal inflation target of +2.0%.

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