M Notes: Mon, 6-30

LAST WEEK:

Markets:  Oil prices drop, and Markets move higher.

S&P roller coaster last week:   Up a lot, Up a lot, Flat, Up, and Up.  

Durable goods:   Orders were up +16.4% in May, significantly beating the consensus of +7%.    

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.662 Trillion.  

GDP:  The Final Q1 GDP number dropped from -0.2% in the prior estimate, down to -0.5%.

Housing:  Existing Homes Sales were up +0.8% in May, but were down -0.7% Y/Y.      New Home Sales were down -13.7% in May, and were down -6.3% Y/Y.  Two weeks ago, Starts were down -9.8% in May, and were down -4.6% Y/Y.  

Inflation:  The May PCE rose from 2.1% up to 2.3% Y/Y, as expected.  

Jobless claims:  The weekly number came in at 236,000.  The four-week average came in at 245,000.

National Debt:  $37.043 Trillion.  (It’s going up about $28-30 Billion/week.)

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  With a Holiday shortened week, we’ll get the June Jobs & Unemployment numbers on Thursday morning.  Expectations are for 110,000 new jobs and the Unemployment Rate moving up a tick from 4.2% up to 4.3%.  

Calendar:   ISM Manufacturing index (Tue); ADP employment report (Wed) the June Jobs and Unemployment number, ISM Services index, jobless claims (Thu); and Holiday (Fri).

Holiday: US Markets will be closed on Friday, in observance of the July 4th Holiday.

* The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be representative of the stock market in general.    The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted index of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks.  The NASDAQ Composite Index is an unmanaged, market-weighted index of all over-the-counter common stocks traded on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System.  Yahoo! Finance, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily and Barron’s are several of the sources used for financial information. 

* The National Debt figure comes from usdebtclock.org.   

* Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance.  Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision.  You cannot invest directly in an index.   Past performance does not guarantee future results. No strategy can assure a profit or protect against a loss.  Investments in the securities markets involve risk, such as loss of your principal.