Reopening Stocks Fuel $6 Trillion Boom in a Post-Pandemic Market

(Bloomberg) -- A $6 trillion boom in U.S. equities to open 2021 is leaving the pandemic’s winners in the dust as investors shift their focus to companies taking advantage of a reopening economy.

Americans’ renewed interest in shopping and travel -- not to mention meme stocks -- helped send the S&P 500 Index to a 14% gain through Friday. Losing out were the stay-at-home stalwarts of 2020, such as Peloton Interactive Inc. and Clorox Co., with Covid-19 vaccines banishing fears of infection. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index eked out a 11% gain so far this year, a far cry from its threefold outperformance of the S&P 500 in 2020.

History, of course, is not a perfect a guide to what’s next in the market. Joseph Saluzzi, partner and co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading LLC, is expecting a technology rebound as investors peer beyond the pandemic recovery.

“The market is looking for the next move,” he said in an interview. “I think it’ll look at sectors that it overlooked for a while.”

Here are some of the standout winning and losing trades from the first six months of 2021.

Winners

Losers

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