M Notes: Mon, 7-13

LAST WEEK:

Markets:  Mixed results last week.

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

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.73 Trillion.  (This number gets updated on Thursday afternoons at 4:30pm.) 

Fed Minutes:   Three weeks ago, all voting members of the FOMC agreed to keep their Interest Rate at 3.50% to 3.75%.  Eight members wanted a hold or cut, while nine members wanted to hike their rate.  What we have is a divided committee.  

Housing:  Existing Home Sales were -2.4% in June, but were up +2.8% Y/Y.  

ISM:  The Institute for Supply Management’s Service Index (70% of the US economy) Dropped a touch… from 54.5 down to 54.0 in June.   Two weeks ago, their Manufacturing index dropped from 54.0 (June) to 53.3 (July).  A number below 50 implies an economic contraction, while a number above 50 implies an economic expansion.  

Metals:  Gold finished the week at $4,121.  Silver finished the week at $60.

National Debt:  $39.371 Trillion.  

Trade Deficit:  $87 Billion in May.

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  Inflation.  Expectations are the CPI will drop from 4.2% down to 3.8%.  We’ll find out tomorrow.  

Calendar:   The June CPI (Tue); the June PPI (Wed); June’s Retail Sales (Thu), and June’s Housing Starts (Fri).  

Earnings:  A new Earnings Season gets underway this week.  Some of the companies reporting:  Bank of America, Citigroup, GE Aerospace, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Netflix, PNC, Progressive, Taiwan Semiconductor, UnitedHealth, and Wells Fargo.  

Personal Note:  Senator Lindsey Graham’s passing away this past weekend, brought home once again… we never know when it’s time.  He was Overseas last week, and returned home last Friday.  Those who were with him on the European trip thought we was healthy.   The next day Graham appears to have had a heart issue, and passed away suddenly.  We never know when it’s time.  It reminds me to make sure I have purpose in my life.  It reminds me to have “balance” in my life.  And it reminds me to make sure I hug my loved ones and to tell them how much I care about them.  

* 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.