Equity markets started off 2025 to the upside in January, reinforced by generally strong earnings reports across industries including several market leading technology companies. Further supporting equities has been a restrained interest rate environment with the Federal Reserve holding interest rate policy steady. After fueling a significant portion of 2024’s market gains, the technology sector in January was pushed to the sidelines amidst fear and uncertainty linked to the development of a new artificial intelligence (AI) large language model developed in China by DeepSeek that holds the potential to disrupt the expected trajectory of AI industry growth. With the Technology sector dropping in January, market leadership broadened with notable gains across the Communication Services, Health Care, and Financials sectors.