At the risk of sounding cliche, this time could be different because utilities, gold and Treasuries are rallying at the same time. The sooner the Fed cuts interest rates, the better for small-caps, but we’ll get a better sense of how realistic that is later this week. In the short-term, gold has significant predictive power when moving sharply.

Tech stocks are turning choppy here as some of the magnificent 7 stocks are behaving not so magnificently. Small-caps are finally starting to show a little life and it coincides with the rebound we’re seeing in cyclicals. Lumber prices have been steadily rising for a few weeks, but last week’s big spike in gold prices could prove more meaningful.

In a market that’s been rotating between growth and cyclicals, it’s impressive that healthcare has become the 2nd best performing sector year-to-date. The volatility over the past couple of weeks in utilities could be signaling an imminent return to short-term risk-off conditions. The fact that small-caps are at least moving sideways relative to large-caps provides some hope that traditional market behaviors could be normalizing.