A mixed finish to a strong week for US equity markets albeit both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P500 touched fresh record intra-session highs - Dow up +87-points or +0.32% (to 26,743.50) and posting back-to-back record closing highs. The broader S&P500 dipped -0.04% after touching a fresh record intra-day high earlier in the session. The NASDAQ -0.51%. Google parent Alphabet Inc (down -1.63%), Netflix Inc (-1.14%), Facebook Inc (-1.86%) and Twitter Inc (-4.52%) all join a the new communications sector from tonight's AEST trading. Walt Disney Co. (up +0.06%) and CBS Corp (+0.07%) will also be added to the revamped sector. The sector replaces the (defensive) telecom sector in a reshuffling of market capitalisation that amounts to close to US$3 trillion. The moves will lead to a 21.4% loss in market capitalisation for the consumer discretionary sector and a 19.5% drop in technology's market value. The new communication sector will represent 9.8% of the S&P 500, up from the current telecom's size of 2%. The move is part of an effort to address the fact that the technology sector had grown to ~26% of the S&P500. Apple Inc (down -1.08%), Microsoft Corp (up +0.61%) and Amazon.com Inc (down -1.51%) alone consumed 4% of the US$20 trillion plus equity market in less than three years (source: DataTrek Research). Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet represent an S&P 500 market weighting (15.6%) that is greater than either the health-care or financials sector. For the week, the Dow rose +2.25% and S&P500 +0.85%, while the Nasdaq lost -0.29%.
