It was a big week for mega Tech. On Wednesday, the CEO’s of mega Tech companies, including Apple’s Tim Cook, were getting lambasted during a congressional hearing. On Thursday after the market close, these same companies reported earnings that exceeded expectations. Additionally, Apple’s Tim Cook announced an Apple stock split of 4:1. On Friday, the NASDAQ 100 popped 1.78 percent and Apple stock surged over 11 percent, making it the most valuable company in the world. Other news this week included the Fed leaving interest rates unchanged, unemployment was in line with expected estimates, and the emergency unemployment benefit ended on Friday. Lastly, the second quarter GDP number came in with a drop of 32.9%. While better than the anticipated 34%, its still the worst since 1921. While the GDP looked at April through June, let’s instead look at the S&P 500 over that same timeframe plus July. Taking a glass half full perspective, the S&P 500 has had four consecutive months of gains (April through July), gained a total of 26.6%, and closed Friday at 3271. Over the last two months you’ve heard me discuss resistance lines, or thresholds where an index/fund is moving up, but then has difficulty breaking through. We next have a minor resistance line at 3276, which was the post COVID high. However, the major resistance line is at 3386, the S&P500’s record high on 19 February of this year. From our present level, that’s only 3.5 percent away which is within reach. For TSP TIPS, our TSP C and S equity funds are staying the course with good performance rankings and "buy" signals. As such, our present allocation still looks good and since August has five Mondays, we’ll wait another week before considering any allocation changes.
It was a big week for mega Tech. On Wednesday, the CEO’s of mega Tech companies, including Apple’s Tim Cook, were getting lambasted during a congressional hearing. On Thursday after the market close, these same companies reported earnings that exceeded expectations. Additionally, Apple’s Tim Cook announced an Apple stock split of 4:1. On Friday, the NASDAQ 100 popped 1.78 percent and Apple stock surged over 11 percent, making it the most valuable company in the world. Other news this week included the Fed leaving interest rates unchanged, unemployment was in line with expected estimates, and the emergency unemployment benefit ended on Friday. Lastly, the second quarter GDP number came in with a drop of 32.9%. While better than the anticipated 34%, its still the worst since 1921. While the GDP looked at April through June, let’s instead look at the S&P 500 over that same timeframe plus July. Taking a glass half full perspective, the S&P 500 has had four consecutive months of gains (April through July), gained a total of 26.6%, and closed Friday at 3271. Over the last two months you’ve heard me discuss resistance lines, or thresholds where an index/fund is moving up, but then has difficulty breaking through. We next have a minor resistance line at 3276, which was the post COVID high. However, the major resistance line is at 3386, the S&P500’s record high on 19 February of this year. From our present level, that’s only 3.5 percent away which is within reach. For TSP TIPS, our TSP C and S equity funds are staying the course with good performance rankings and "buy" signals. As such, our present allocation still looks good and since August has five Mondays, we’ll wait another week before considering any allocation changes.