• Where's the beef? With Treasury and corporate bond yields at extremely low levels, investors are flocking to dividend paying stocks of companies like those found in the S&P500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF. It is a reasonable move given these companies pay an average dividend yield of 2.15% compared to 1.48% for a 10-year Treasury. Additionally, dividend payouts in the S&P500 are expected to rise by around 6% over the next year, and they trade at 18x forward earnings, hence good value.
• No more pretending. Despite the recent success of value-stocks, the high-growth tech stocks of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Alphabet still compose 22% of the S&P500. Amazon alone is now worth more than the energy, real estate, materials, or utility sectors individually. This has been a problem for investors since these companies have underperformed the market by 25% since last September. 
• Hooray for the little guys.The largest pharmaceutical companies have been responsible for 89% of all M&A activity (in terms of deal value) over the past decade in their industry. Now it seems midsize companies are stirring the M&A kettle having initiated over $13 billion in deals this year - double that of large pharma. Larger companies are focused on paying down debt, wary of potential antitrust concerns of government, and a lack of meaningful target acquisitions. Smaller companies are finding easy access to new funding methods and financial partners to help them complete their sought-after deals.
• And the beat goes on...With June officially in the books, the second quarter of 2021 saw the market increase in value by 8.2%.The S&P500 has now grown for five consecutive quarters, each of which have seen growth of 5% or more. This is impressive, as only once since 1945 has the market been able to “accomplish” this feat.