M Notes: Mon, 7-28

LAST WEEK:

Markets:  The Train keeps on moving higher.  

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

Durable goods orders:  Coming off of May’s impressive number (+16.4%), June’s number was better than consensus but was still down -9.3%.  Orders were up +10.9% Y/Y.  

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.658 Trillion.  

Housing:  Existing home sales were down -2.7% in June, and were unchanged Y/Y.  New home sales were up +0.6% in June but were down -6.6% Y/Y.  Two weeks ago, Starts were up +4.6% in June, but were down -0.5% Y/Y. 

Jobless claims:  The weekly number came in at 217,000.  The four-week average came in at 225,000.

National Debt:  $37.160 Trillion.  (It’s going up about $28-30 Billion/week.)

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  The Fed Meeting.  It’s a really busy economic data week, but the fifth (out of eight) FOMC meeting of the year will be this week’s focus.  Will we get any indication of a rate cut for some time this year?  

Calendar:   GDP, Fed Meeting statement, Fed Chair press conference (Wed); the PCE, jobless claims (Thu); the new Jobs and Unemployment numbers, and the ISM Manufacturing index (Fri).

Earnings:  Some of the companies reporting this week are:  Airbus, Altria, Amazon, Apple, ARM, AstraZeneca, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, Chevron, Comcast, Exxon Mobil, Ferrari, Mastercard, Merck, Meta, Microsoft, Nintendo, Proctor & Gamble, Qualcomm, Southern Company, Spotify, Starbucks, UnitedHealth, UPS, Visa, and Waste Management.

* 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.