Small Caps, Energy & Banks Surge as Wall Street Ditches Big Tech in 2025

The tide is turning—fast. While mega-cap tech stocks flatline, Wall Street’s pumping cash into overlooked sectors. Here’s why the smart money’s flipping the script.

### Small caps: The underdogs bite back

No longer benchwarmers, small-cap stocks are rallying hard. Lower valuations? Check. Less regulatory scrutiny? Double-check. Traders are betting big on agility over scale.

### Energy’s revenge tour

Fossil fuels were supposed to be dead. Yet energy stocks are crushing it—thanks to brutal supply constraints and that pesky little thing called global demand. Renewables? Still playing catch-up.

### Banks: The ultimate contrarian play

With rate cuts stalled, regional banks are printing money the old-fashioned way. Credit spreads? Tightening. Loan books? Fattening. The Street’s rediscovering the joy of 3% net interest margins.

Meanwhile, Big Tech’s ‘growth at any cost’ narrative hits a wall. Valuation multiples contracting. Antitrust hammers dropping. But hey—at least their metaverse divisions are… wait, never mind.

*‘Diversification is for idiots—until suddenly it’s not.’ - Some hedge fund manager probably*

Investors ditch mega-cap tech for broader bets

The number of stocks in the S&P 500 closing above their 50-day moving average has surged to levels not seen since fall 2016, right before TRUMP got elected and markets exploded into an end-of-year rally. Even more telling, a separate metric tracking the number of stocks going up versus those going down hit a new high last Friday.

Adam Turnquist, who runs technical strategy over at LPL Financial, said, “We’ve seen this before: big tech leads and the market follows. It seems like we are dusting off that playbook.” This time, though, Wall Street isn’t waiting for tech to lead. It’s moving on its own, without Nvidia dragging everything else with it.

Tom Essaye from Sevens Report said the reason this is happening is simple: FOMO. “As long as things can stay stable, then this market is not exhausted by any stretch of the imagination.” Tom called this the “FOMO trade”—the fear of missing out that’s pushing investors into anything that isn’t priced like Tesla.

Jamie Cox, who manages $1.2 billion at Harris Financial Group in Richmond, said he didn’t touch his Big Tech holdings even during the dips. Instead, he went after financials, defense, and large international stocks. “I’m surprised it took this long,” Jamie said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

His clients, he added, are finally asking for something besides Nvidia and Apple. “That lends itself to owning different things than just the most effective of the tech stocks,” he said. His latest buys? RTX Corp and Lockheed Martin. “You buy the less-aggressive, more tried-and-true, boring stocks.”

Banks and small-caps catch a break as valuations stretch

Still, not everyone’s celebrating. Small-caps are underperforming compared to the broader indexes. George Pearkes from Bespoke Investment Group said there’s still hesitation to touch riskier names. “We WOULD have to see a change in risk appetite.”

Eric Teal, Chief Investment Officer at Comerica Wealth Management, said he’s buying across the board—midcaps, small caps, even microcaps. His logic? These smaller names won’t get slammed by any fresh tariffs, and if the Federal Reserve cuts rates again, that could be the final push these companies need. 

“The broadening out that we’ve seen over the last number of months is not something that’s going to be short-lived,” Eric said. He’s also putting more cash into domestic banks, which are less exposed to overseas risk and trade blowback.

Brian Buetel, managing director at UBS Private Wealth Management, said: “Nobody disagrees that the Mag Seven are just extremely expensive. People forget there are sectors of the market that are on sale—that are cheap.”

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