The S&P 500 was down for the second week in a row as it closed Friday at 5,459. Punctuated by three daily moves of greater than 1%, it was a volatile week. On Monday the S&P 500 gained over 1% and came just three points shy of setting a new record closing high. Tuesday was a wait and see day in anticipation of Microsoft, Alphabet and Tesla earnings reports after the close. That said, these reports were lackluster and by Wednesdays close all three were down for the day with Microsoft off -3.59%, Alphabet down -5.03%, and Tesla getting a shock with a loss of -12.33%. All told, the S&P 500 suffered its largest daily loss (over 2%) since 15 December 2022. Thursday was a round-trip kind of day as the S&P 500 opened strong, up over 1% by noon, but then fell off closing below its opening price. Before Fridays open the June core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index showed that inflation rose 2.6% over the prior year, marking the slowest annual increase in more than three years. The S&P 500 reacted bullishly and bookended Mondays 1% plus gain with another 1% or greater gain. From a technical perspective, in last weekends update we discussed two concerns with 1) the S&P 500 support level of 5,446 and 2) a cross of the 10 day Exponential Moving Average (MA) below its 20 day Simple MA. On Wednesday both of those concerns became a reality (check out the S&P 500 chart in Yahoo finance). Also, market rotation continues with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 posting back-to-back weekly losses for the first time since April. Meanwhile, the cyclical Dow notched its fourth consecutive positive week for the first time since May, and the small cap Russell 2000 index marked its third consecutive bullish week. Next week will be busy. On Wednesday we get Meta earnings, followed by Apple and Amazon on Thursday. We also have the Fed meeting and decision on Wednesday, then the Employment report on Friday. Hopefully next week will be positive, and not a threepeat of the April S&P 500 three week down streak. For TSP TIPS we pushed out a Mid-Week alert, increasing our G fund/cash allocation. That said, well continue to monitor market action and hopefully this week will be less volatile as we close out July.
The S&P 500 was down for the second week in a row as it closed Friday at 5,459. Punctuated by three daily moves of greater than 1%, it was a volatile week. On Monday the S&P 500 gained over 1% and came just three points shy of setting a new record closing high. Tuesday was a wait and see day in anticipation of Microsoft, Alphabet and Tesla earnings reports after the close. That said, these reports were lackluster and by Wednesdays close all three were down for the day with Microsoft off -3.59%, Alphabet down -5.03%, and Tesla getting a shock with a loss of -12.33%. All told, the S&P 500 suffered its largest daily loss (over 2%) since 15 December 2022. Thursday was a round-trip kind of day as the S&P 500 opened strong, up over 1% by noon, but then fell off closing below its opening price. Before Fridays open the June core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Index showed that inflation rose 2.6% over the prior year, marking the slowest annual increase in more than three years. The S&P 500 reacted bullishly and bookended Mondays 1% plus gain with another 1% or greater gain. From a technical perspective, in last weekends update we discussed two concerns with 1) the S&P 500 support level of 5,446 and 2) a cross of the 10 day Exponential Moving Average (MA) below its 20 day Simple MA. On Wednesday both of those concerns became a reality (check out the S&P 500 chart in Yahoo finance). Also, market rotation continues with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 posting back-to-back weekly losses for the first time since April. Meanwhile, the cyclical Dow notched its fourth consecutive positive week for the first time since May, and the small cap Russell 2000 index marked its third consecutive bullish week. Next week will be busy. On Wednesday we get Meta earnings, followed by Apple and Amazon on Thursday. We also have the Fed meeting and decision on Wednesday, then the Employment report on Friday. Hopefully next week will be positive, and not a threepeat of the April S&P 500 three week down streak. For TSP TIPS we pushed out a Mid-Week alert, increasing our G fund/cash allocation. That said, well continue to monitor market action and hopefully this week will be less volatile as we close out July.