Top Down Trade of the Week (6/28/2025)

Welcome back for another Top Down Trade of the Week. 

This is a classic leadership scan.

We start with the best sectors, then drill into the subgroups. We pick one, and then take a look at the top stocks in it. 

This week, Financials is the big standout—climbing five spots in our sector rankings.

While Technology holds the top spot, it’s worth highlighting Financials this week. 

The consolidation in the Financial Sector SPDR $XLF is likely to resolve higher soon- just like Technology $XLK, Communications $XLC, and Industrials $XLI did this week. 

These are all very different sectors, but they share one critical thing in common. These groups all represent risk appetite. 

The market is on offense right now, so we’re going to keep fishing in risk-on areas. 

And the leaders in Financials are already going. Just days ago, JPMorgan $JPM broke out to new all-time highs. 

We’re talking about the largest bank in the world—a true bellwether for global markets.

It’s hard to bet against this space when you’re seeing moves like that.

Here is a look at our overall industry rankings, which shows capital markets jumping into the top 20.

Buyers continue to come in at higher levels, and the relative strength has been off the charts all year.

In fact, this has been a steady leadership area all cycle long. 

And again, when these stocks are doing well, it’s a clear sign of risk appetite and healthy participation. Think of capital markets as extra offense- they are the most risk-on industry in what is already a risk-on sector. 

These are the Top 10 capital markets names, sorted by relative strength.

My favorite setup from the list is a $5B investment bank providing advisory, capital markets, and asset management services.

Here’s Piper Sandler Companies $PIPR:

PIPR has been stair-stepping higher, and consolidating constructively along the way for the past decade.

Price just cleared a major level of interest and the VWAP anchored to all-time highs. 

That means the average buyer is finally in the green.

We have no reason to bet against this trend.

Our team at ASC is constantly running these kinds of top-down scans. If you want access to our research and the trade ideas that come out of it, join us today—risk free.