The first part of this week was driven by rotation out of the year's winners into the year's losers. Fast forward to Friday with Fed Chair Powell hinting at rate cuts in September, everything reversed.  As shown below, breaking the Russell 1,000 into deciles (ten equal sized groups of 100 index members), today's best performers were those that had been the worst performers from August 13th through yesterday's close. The 100 stocks down the most from 8/13-8/21 gained over 4% today on average.  Conversely, the deciles of the best performers from 8/13-8/21 still averaged gains today, but they were much weaker at just over 1%.

In the table below, we show the 25 best performing stocks in the Russell 1,000 today.  As shown, wireless networking equipment maker Ubiquiti (UI) is experiencing the single largest gain of any stock in the index, up 28.8%.  The stock's surge comes after reporting a top and bottom line beat this morning with the announcement of a stock buyback and cash dividend. Earnings aside, the stock was a big decliner in the days prior, having fallen almost 20% since August 13.  The next largest gain was another earnings story as Zoom Communications (ZM) rose 12.18% on its own top and bottom line beat.

On average, the stocks up the most today were down 4% from 8/13-8/21, with names like RH, Rocket (RKT), and QXO down 10%+ during this period.  As Powell opened the door for another cut, many of the biggest gainers today were housing related or cyclical in nature. RH (RH) is a high-end home furnishing business whereas Rocket (RKT), Mr Cooper (COOP, and UWM (UWMC) represent mortgage lending.  Homebuilder-adjacent names like Builders FirstSource (BLDR) and Floor & Decor (FND)  likewise posted high-single digit gains today.  Out of the transportation industry, travel and leisure names like Alaska Air (AIR) and Norwegian Cruises (NCLH) made the list in addition to logistics and goods transporters such as XPO (XPO).

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