Stock Market Today: August 7th - 11th, 2023

Welcome StonkForums to the trading week of August 7th!

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:


S&P Sectors End of Week:


Major Indices End of Week:



Major Futures Markets End of Week:


Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:


What to Watch in the Week Ahead:

(N/A.)

 

Less Jobs, More Inflation: Stocks Puke, Oil Soars, Yield Curve Steepens
FRIDAY, AUG 04, 2023 - 04:00 PM

Less jobs, slower Services and Manufacturing sector growth, sticky prices (ISM), and surging gasoline costs (thank you OPEC) - Bidenomics smells more like stagflation.

'Hope' has been in charge of macro data recently with 'soft' survey data surging back in its mean-reverting manner as 'hard' real data has been fading (led down by industrial, personal finance, and housing data)...



Source: Bloomberg

After a bloodbath in bond-land this week, today's ugly jobs data sparked a bond-buying-panic (the belly outperformed today 5Y -15bps), sending yields at the shorter-end of the curve lower on the week (-10bps), though the long-end was still up around 20bps on the week...





Source: Bloomberg

No-one should be surprised by this purge in yields...

Rate-hike expectations tumbled...



Source: Bloomberg

On the stock side, AMZN and AAPL were the big movers (the former surging most since Nov as the latter tumbled by the most this year)...





Overall, they lost around $30 billion in market cap today...



Source: Bloomberg

That weighed on Nasdaq which was the week's worst performer - its worst week since March. The Dow managed a bounce today - perfectly tagging unch for the week - before it all fell apart...



It seems Goldman's Scott Rubner was on to something when he warned "fade the green" as stocks bounced this morning.

Options traders aggressively faded the bounce post-payrolls in stocks then they piled on as the S&P broke 4500...



Source: SpotGamma

The S&P plunged to 3-week lows...



None of which should have been a surprise given our warning.

'Most Shorted' stocks tumbled on the week - the first losing week in the last six...



Source: Bloomberg

VIX (and VVIX) were both higher on the week with significant volatility...



Source: Bloomberg

Back to bonds, the yield curve surged this week (2s30s steeper for the 9th straight day). Outside of the SVB collapse, the last two weeks have seen the biggest curve-steepening since April 2022...



Source: Bloomberg

Yields reversed at key resistance levels from last November (or March's SVB collapse)...



Source: Bloomberg

The dollar rallied for the 3rd straight week, though today's dovishness took some of the lipstick off. The reversal in the USD happened right at the pre-Payrolls dump level from July...



Source: Bloomberg

Crypto continues to tread water with BTC hovering around $29k (after tagging $30k intraday during the week)



Source: Bloomberg

Gold rallied on the day as the dollar sank but overall was lower for the second week in a row. Today's post-payrolls jump echoed last month's...



Oil prices surged to $83 (WTI) today after the OPEC+ panel's recc and are up for the sixth straight week (longest streak since June 2022)...



...with WTI at its highest since November...



Source: Bloomberg

Which is a very bad thing for those who believed The Fed has beaten inflation - Pump prices are about to explode...



Source: Bloomberg

And this time Biden is out of options with the SPR... maybe time for another fist-bump?

Finally, you are here...



Source: Bloomberg

And, as Goldman notes, companies that are beating consensus ests by >1SD are only outperforming the S&P 500 by +70bps on the trading session directly following earnings. Typically beats outperform the S&P 500 by over 100bps.



In other words, it's all priced-in.

 

The Economy is Normalizing, and That’s a Good Thing
Posted on August 4, 2023

The economy created 187,000 jobs in July, slightly softer than the 200,000 that economists expected. The last couple of months were revised lower, and so it’s always helpful to take a 3-month average, which is now running at 218,000. That’s stronger than the pre-pandemic average of 183,000.

In short, job growth remains strong. You will hear some people heralding this as the onset of a recession, but more likely this is just normalization of the economy rather than weakness. The report aligns with what we wrote in our Mid-Year 2023 Outlook, not to mention the title: “Edging Closer to Normal”.



The private sector created 172,000 jobs in July, up from 128,000 in June. On a sector level, job growth this year has been driven by non-cyclical areas like health care, education, and government. These sectors had lagged in the early recovery, accounting for just 13% of jobs created in 2021, and 25% in 2022. Over the first 7 months of this year, they’ve accounted for more than 50% of jobs created. July didn’t buck that trend, with health care seeing 100,000 jobs created. Government jobs were on the softer side, rising 15,000 in July versus an average of 53,000 between April and June.

The cyclical areas of the economy, especially construction, manufacturing, and leisure and hospitality, remain on the softer side, with job growth adding up to 34,000 across these three sectors. So far this year, these sectors have accounted for about 20% of job creation (not exactly “weak”), versus 36% in 2022 and 43% in 2021.

Again, the theme is normalization.

The Best Labor Market Since the Late 1990s
The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, not far from 50+ year lows of 3.4%. What is amazing is that the unemployment rate is slightly below where it was in June 2023, when the Fed really started to get aggressive with rate hikes.

The unemployment rate can be impacted by people leaving the labor force (technically defined as those “not looking for work”) and an aging population. I’ve discussed in prior blogs how we can get around this by looking at the employment-population ratio for prime age workers, i.e. workers aged 25-54 years. This measures the number of people working as a percent of the civilian population. Think of it as the opposite of the unemployment rate, and because we use prime age, you also get around the demographic issue.

The good news is that the prime-age employment-population ratio remained at 80.9%. That is higher than at any point since May 2001. It was actually falling at that time, and didn’t recover until now. This is the best indication that the labor market remains very healthy, and probably in the best shape since the late 1990s.



Bottom Line: All Signs Point to a Strong Economy
The US economy runs on consumption, and for that you need income. The good news is that income growth appears to remain strong and looks to be running ahead of inflation. In fact, wage growth rose 0.4% in July. Monthly numbers can be volatile, but the 3-month annualized pace is 4.9%.

You combine strong wage growth with strong employment, and that translates to strong income gains across the entire economy. Over the last 3 months, overall income growth for all workers is running at a 5.3% annual pace. Meanwhile, headline inflation is running close to 2.0%. The difference between the two tells you how fast incomes are growing after adjusting for inflation, and that’s running above a 3% annual pace over the past 3 months.



In my opinion, that’s your simplest measure of underlying economic growth and should tell you things are ok. Normalization is not the same as weakness.

11 Things to Know About the U.S. Debt Downgrade
Posted on August 3, 2023

“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.” -Will Rogers

• What happened? Rating agency Fitch downgraded the U.S. government’s longer-term credit rating to AA+ from AAA. This was the second time in history a rating agency did this, as S&P Global Ratings did it in August 2011 after a government standoff over the debt ceiling. Must be something about early August
• Why did they do it? You can read the whole report here, but they cited, “the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers” as reasons for the downgrade.
• What does Washington think? To the surprise of no one, the White House and Washington disagree. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for instance said she strongly disagreed with the decision, calling it ‘arbitrary’ and said it was based on outdated data.
• Why now? Fitch put the U.S. on watch for a potential downgrade three months ago as the debt ceiling drama was in full swing. Why did they do it now? That’s a tough one to answer, as the reasons listed could have meant a downgrade at any point over the past two years. Maybe they did it in August (like S&P) as they hoped the impact would be limited with many on vacation and lower volumes?

The good news is the debt limit has been lifted for two years, Washington has passed multiple bipartisan deals, inflation is slowing dramatically, and economic growth is surprising to the upside. A downgrade now doesn’t make a lot of sense to most of us.

Analysts have generally responded negatively to the downgrade. For example, Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, commented, “I am very puzzled by many aspects of this announcement, as well as the time.”

• Is a recession imminent? Credit downgrades are generally not a direct response to the economic cycle nor does the downgrade to AA+ represent any real concern with default risk. The downgrade is not a growth forecast. Still, we want to be emphatic that we believe a recession is not As we’ve been saying all year, the economy is on very firm footing, thanks to a strong consumer, slowing inflation, a healthy jobs market, and improvements in housing and manufacturing. In fact, Sonu wrote about the consumer improving in Three Reasons Why US Consumers Are Feeling Better.

Lastly, here’s a great table that shows disposable incomes and employee compensation are both running consistently above inflation over the past year. We came into this year saying there wouldn’t be a recession (that wasn’t very popular) and we remain in the camp the economy will surprise to the upside if anything the rest of ’23 and the strong consumer is a big reason.

• Does this change our overweight to equities? No, it absolutely does not. We continue to see a better economy coming, stronger-than-expected earnings, continued falling inflation, a broadening out of overall participation (with small, mid-caps, and cyclicals leading), and strong technical trends overall as reasons to expect stocks to outperform bonds and likely do well at least into the remainder of this year.

Speaking of the 2011 downgrade, the S&P 500 is up more than 275% since then. That should help calm some near-term nerves.

Be sure to listen to the latest Facts vs Feelings podcast called Just Like Everyone Expected, where Sonu and I breakdown many of our reasons for still being optimistic.

• What happened in 2011? What I remember most about that downgrade was it came on a Friday after the market closed, almost like S&P was trying to sneak it past everyone or at least give markets the weekend to digest the news. Well, that wasn’t the case, as the S&P 500 saw historic volatility that next week, falling 6.66% on Monday, up 4.7% on Tuesday, and down 4.4% on Wednesday. It was a choppy mess until the ultimate bottom on October 3.

It is worth noting that yields sold off, which means investors were moving to the safety of Treasuries, the exact thing that was downgraded.

One final note is that unlike now, stocks were weak heading into that downgrade.

• Was this a surprise? No and yes. After the 2011 downgrade, you could say another downgrade was always a possibility, especially after the latest drama out of Washington regarding the debt ceiling, not to mention Fitch had the U.S. on watch for a move like this. Still, as we will discuss next, the three main reasons they listed as reasons for the downgrade have all been improving, not deteriorating. ‍♂️
• Debt is improving, not getting worse. They mentioned “general government debt burden” as one of the three main reasons for the downgrade. Well, debt-to-GDP has fallen from 123% in Q1 ’22 to 119% in Q1 ’23 and is well off the previous peak of 135%in Q2 ’20. The Congressional Budget Office is projecting steady growth in debt-to-GDP moving forward, but that’s a forecast. Why pull the trigger when the trend is improving?

• Is the government really worse? They cited a deterioration of governance quality as another reason for the downgrade. We’d say things haven’t changed all that much over the past decade. Now we aren’t saying things are great here, but we believe they’ve been bad pretty much overall the past decade, so we don’t see them getting worse.

Not to mention over the past two years saw Congress pass three big bipartisan deals, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPS Act, and a spending deal to avoid a debt ceiling breach earlier this year. It’s also important to keep in mind that sometimes the government that governs best is the government that governs least. Gridlock can be a fiscal positive.

We get it, many may not like the government, but we don’t think things are that bad. Besides the quote by Will Rogers above about the government, we are often reminded that if the opposite of pro is con, then the opposite of PROgress must be CONgress.

• A worse next three years. Lastly, they cited deterioration over the next three years as the final reason for the downgrade, while also citing they expected a ‘mild recession’ sometime later this year or early next year (that sounds familiar).

We are taking the other side to the recession talk, as we have all year. Inflation is down from 9% to 3%, earnings are bottoming and trending higher, the consumer is strong, and the labor market shows no signs of slowing. Real GDP is up a very solid 2.6% year over year, and the unemployment rate is holding near 50-year lows.



They cited worries over fiscal deficits and “unsustainability,” but they then projected federal deficits of 6% of GDP over the next few years. This isn’t anything new, as it is what the CBO has been projecting. Lastly, the deficit has quietly been improving from 15% of GDP in 2020 to 5.4% as of 2022. Granted, this is off pandemic historical extremes outside WWII and is not a desirable level, but there’s nothing new here other than positive trends.



The bottom line is U.S. Treasuries are still considered to be the ‘safest’ asset in the world and we don’t expect that to change due to this credit rating downgrade. The irony is that the world wants safe assets, and the one country that is willing (and perhaps, able) to issue even more of them is the US, though that also means that the US is issuing more debt! Europe, Japan, and China are the only other potential candidates, but for various reasons they’re not in a position to supply investors with safe assets to the degree the US can.

Additionally, we don’t anticipate any big holders of our debt to be forced to sell as a result of the downgrade.

Another Hot July. Another Late-Summer/Autumn Buy?

DJIA was up 3.3% July 2023. Gains of this magnitude for July, however, have frequently been followed by late-summer or autumn selloffs and better buying opportunities in late-summer or autumn. In the past, full-month July gains in excess of 3.0% for DJIA have been followed historically by declines of 6.9% on average in the Dow with a low at some point in the last 5 months of the year. 2022 case in point.

We’ve been hearing everyone’s now expecting a correction. Maybe the technicians and savvy traders are. But the rest of the world has become quite bullish recently. Investors Intelligence bullish % hit a new recovery high.

Now the sell side that was bearish are getting bullish and the few that were on board with the bull early on like us – all great technicians who we respect – are doubling down. While many “in the know” are expecting a seasonal correction the bulk of the rest of the world the “real market” is starting to finally get bullish again.

One little news item, the downgrade by Fitch of US debt has exposed the uncertainties, the overbought conditions and seasonal weakness is rearing its perennial head. Like Octobephobia, August-September seasonal weakness can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sentiment Swings Higher Despite Declines
Thu, Aug 3, 2023

Equities have rolled over in the past week with selling hitting a pinnacle when the US government's credit rating was downgraded by Fitch on Wednesday. In spite of this, sentiment has not taken a hit. The latest survey from the AAII showed 49% of respondents reported bullish sentiment which compares to 44.9% the prior week. With nearly half of respondents reporting as optimists, bullish sentiment sits handily above its historical average of 37.5%. In fact, this week marked the ninth in a row with a bullish sentiment reading above the historical average for the longest such streak since one that ended at 13 weeks long in May 2021.



The increase in bullish sentiment resulted in bearish sentiment to drop down to 21.3% which marks a 2.8 percentage point decline on the week and resulted in the lowest bearish reading since June 10, 2021 when it was 20.7%. Similar to bullish sentiment, that is the ninth week in a row with a reading below its historical average, and that is the longest streak since July 2021.



As a result to the increased optimism, the bull-bear spread ticked up from 20.8 last week to 27.7. That is still below the recent high of 29.9 from two weeks ago, but reiterates how investors have an elevated degree of optimism.



Not all of the gains to bulls came from bears. Neutral sentiment also declined this week falling from 31% to 29.7%. That is in the middle of the past few years' range.



Small Dent to Claims
Thu, Aug 3, 2023

Initial jobless claims have been trending lower over the past couple of months, reaching a nearly six month low of 221K last week. This week, claims rebounded rising 6K to 227K. Albeit off the strongest readings from last fall, that remains a healthy reading on joblessness.



On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, claims are at historically solid levels even if they have come off their best levels. This week, claims dropped to 205K. That is slightly above the readings from the comparable weeks of the year of the past few years (excluding 2020 and 2021 when claims were much more elevated).

At this point of the year, claims falling is normal as shown in the second chart below. The current week of the year has only seen claims rise week over week 10.7% of the time. That is the sixth most consistent week of declines of the year. Claims will continue to face seasonal tailwinds in the weeks ahead, but that will begin to reverse as summer turns to fall.



Continuing claims also ticked higher in the latest week's data, reaching 1.7 million. Although higher than 1.69 million the previous week, continuing claims have much more consistently been trending lower recently, and this week's reading did in fact come in below forecasts of 1.705 million.



Downgrades Overlooked
Wed, Aug 2, 2023

The bottom has dropped out for the major US indices today with the Nasdaq down over 2% and S&P 500 down 1.25% as of this writing. The catalyst has been the downgrade of the United States' credit rating by Fitch from AAA to AA+ . That is the first downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt in almost twelve years and just the second ever. In the charts below, we show the performance of the S&P 500, government debt, commodities, and the US dollar in the year before and the year after the 2011 downgrade.

The S&P 500 has been rallying in the months leading up to this downgrade, however, back in 2011 the S&P 500 had already begun rolling over by the time S&P downgraded US debt. In the wake of that downgrade, the S&P 500 went on to fully erase all of the prior year's gains. Fortunately, all of those losses were quickly recouped within three months of the downgrade.

As for Treasuries and other US agency debt, performance over the past few months has been the complete opposite of 2011. Of course, the interest rate environment is also completely different now with Fed Funds 500 bps higher than it was at the time of the last downgrade. That being said, in 2011, Treasury yields were on the decline in the months headed into the downgrade, but contrary to what might have been expected, the downgrade itself did not change that trend. This time around has seen yields on US government debt moving in the opposite direction.

Bloomberg's broad commodity index has been in a similar boat with the past few months seeing a decline compared to the steady uptrend back in 2011 that was uninterrupted by the downgrade.

Finally, we would note the downgrade only acted as a longer-term turning point for the dollar. As shown in the bottom right hand chart, both this year and in 2011, the trade weighted dollar was in a downtrend in the year before the downgrade. But right as S&P changed its rating, the dollar turned higher and continued to rise throughout the following year. In fact, one year out it had erased the entirety of the previous year's decline.



Stocks Don’t Like August, Now What?
Posted on August 1, 2023

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Another month and more strong gains. Make that five months in a row, the S&P 500 finished higher. The S&P 500 is now up close to 20% on the year, just like everyone predicted.

We came into the year overweight stocks and remain there, so this run has been a lot of fun for us. But honestly, while we’ve been bullish, even we’ve been surprised by how strong markets have been.

So let’s get the bad news out of the way. The odds are increasing that stocks could finally take some type of a break. Seasonality has worked out perfectly this year. Here’s a chart we shared many, many times, and it said that some of the very best quarters out of the entire four-year Presidential cycle were the three now just behind us. Sure enough, the fourth quarter last year and the first two quarters this year were spectacular for stocks, just like history suggested. Now seasonality is saying to be open to some type of weakness, or at least a break.



To be clear, we do not expect major weakness. But we believe a modest pullback of approximately 5% would be perfectly normal. The S&P 500 has closed higher for five consecutive months. And we’re now moving into the austere month of August. August has been a poor performer, ranking worse than only February and September since 1950 and trailing behind only September and December in the last ten years, although still averaging a positive return over both periods. Oh, and right behind August comes September, the weakest month seasonally. So, while the calendar was a tailwind, we believe it is now becoming a near-term headwind.



Taking another look at August, when stocks are up more than 17.5% for the year heading into this month, a breather is even more likely. We found 11 previous years (since 1950), this occurred, and August was higher only three times and down 1.1% on average. So the better the year, the worse August does, apparently.

One of the reasons we were on record for a surprise summer rally was how stocks tended to do when they had a big first month of the year. When the S&P 500 gained more than 5% in January a summer rally tended to occur (check). But we take seasonal warnings as seriously as seasonal support, and now we are in a period of potential seasonal weakness, at least for the near term.



If stocks experience weakness over the coming months, investors may be surprised and even start projecting the catastrophe many had expected earlier in the year. But keep in mind a pullback in the next couple of months would be entirely normal seasonal behavior. In fact, it may present buying opportunities, or it may simply be a chance to stay the course and remind ourselves that most years see more than three separate 5% pullbacks. Even in a strong year, there will often be bouts of volatility, so we should be ready for it and avoid overreacting. As President Eisenhower said, start planning today.

Lastly, the S&P 500 closed up five consecutive months yesterday. Historically, stocks have done quite well after similar streaks. In fact, the S&P 500 has been up a year later, 26 out of the past 28 times. However, the last time this happened was in June 2021, and that was followed by a drop of nearly 12%. Despite this recent example, the market’s historical strength is likely another indication of higher stock prices in the future.



All in all, the odds are increasing that stocks could see some seasonal weakness, but we don’t think it will be anything major. In fact, maybe a little breather could be just what the bulls need for an eventual strong end-of-year rally.

$10 Trillion Added in Market Cap; 2023's Best and Worst Through July
Tue, Aug 1, 2023

The US stock market (using the Russell 3,000 as a proxy) has now seen an increase in market cap of roughly $10 trillion from its bear market low last October through the end of July 2023. As shown below, the peak market cap for the US stock market was $51.5 trillion seen on the first day of 2022. From high to low, total US market cap fell $13.7 trillion during last year's bear, but since then it has risen back up to $47.7 trillion. To get back to new all-time highs, we currently need market cap to rise by roughly $3.8 trillion.



The average Russell 3,000 stock rose 5.74% in July. There were 813 stocks in the index that rose 10%+ in July, including 29 names that rose 50%+. Below is a table of these 50%+ gainers. Four names rose 100%: PolyMet Mining (PLM), Quantum-Si (QSI), UroGen Pharma (URGN), and Bridgebio Pharma (BBIO). Other notable names on the list of big July winners include Nikola (NKLA), Upstart (UPST), Carvana (CVNA), QuantumScape (QS), Rivian (RIVN), and Riot (RIOT). This list is made up of many of the high-fliers during the post-COVID bull that then got slaughtered during last year's bear.



Through July, the average Russell 3,000 stock was up 18.1% year-to-date. Below is a list of the 35 names that are already up 200%+ on the year. Topping the list is Carvana (CVNA) with a YTD gain of 869% after gaining 77.3% in July. Back in December 2022, CVNA had fallen into the $4s, but it's now back up to the mid-$40s. Next up is Bit Digital (BTBT) with a YTD gain of 638%, followed by Cipher Mining (CIFR), IonQ (IONQ), Riot (RIOT), and Applied Digital (APLD). Similar to the list of July's biggest winners, the biggest winners YTD are many of the names that got hit the hardest last year, with many falling more than 70% during their bear market drawdowns. Carvana, for example, was actually down 98% from its all-time high when it bottomed in 2022, so even after gaining more than 800% this year, it needs to gain another 700% from here to get back to new highs.



Key ETF Performance Through July 2023
Tue, Aug 1, 2023

The S&P 500-tracking ETF (SPY) finished July up 3.27%, leaving it up 20.62% YTD on a total return basis. The mega-cap Tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) gained only slightly more than SPY in July, but it's up more than twice as much as SPY on a YTD basis at +44.5%. The small-cap Russell 2,000 (IWM) did better than large-caps and mid-caps in July with a gain of 6.11%, but IWM is up less than large-caps on a YTD basis at +14.7%. Value and dividend stocks held up well in July and actually outperformed growth for the month, but value is lagging YTD and the DJ Dividend ETF (DVY) is actually down 0.5% on the year.

Looking at US sectors, Energy (XLE) and Financials (XLF) -- which lagged in the first half of 2023 -- did the best in July, while Health Care (XLV) and Real Estate (XLRE) were up the least. Technology (XLK) and Communication Services (XLC) are currently neck and neck on a YTD basis with XLK up 43.94% through July and XLC up just three basis points more at 43.97%.

Outside of the US, we saw China (ASHR) and Israel (EIS) gain the most in July, while France (EWQ) and Spain (EWP) gained the least. YTD, it's Mexico (EWW) that's currently atop the list of country ETFs with a gain of 42.85%.

Oil (USO) gained 15%+ in July, while natural gas (UNG) fell 4.2%. Gold (GLD) saw a small monthly gain of 2.3% versus a gain of 8.6% for silver (SLV). Finally, with yields rising again during the month, Treasury ETFs were in the red. Aside from natural gas, the 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT) is down more than any other asset class in our matrix on a YoY basis with a total return of -12.3%.



Dogs of the Dow for the Dog Days of Summer
Mon, Jul 31, 2023

With the Dow coming off of a historic winning streak last week, below we check in on performance of the index versus the Dogs of the Dow. The Dogs of a Dow is a stock-picking strategy that invests in the index members with the highest dividend yields at the end of a year holds them through the end of the next year. On a total return basis, the Dow's recent winning streak has been a benefit to both the overall index and the Dogs alike. That said, the gains to the former have brought the index up near 2022 highs on a total return basis while the Dogs of the Dow has much further to go given the overall weakness of dividend-oriented equities recently.



In the table below, we show the returns of this year's Dogs of the Dow and all other individual Dow members. The Dogs of the Dow are host to some of the stocks with the worst performance this year like Verizon (VZ) and Chevron (CVX), however, there are also a couple of big winners like Intel (INTC) which has returned nearly 42% YTD or JPMorgan Chase (JPM) which has nearly posted a 20% return. However, the biggest gains in the index have come from non-Dogs. In fact, the largest gains this year have been from those with the lowest or no dividend yields at the end of last year like Boeing (BA), Salesforce (CRM), or Apple (AAPL).

 

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2022-



S&P sectors for the past week-

 

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from 52WK highs as of week ending 8.4.23-


Here is also the pullback/correction levels from current prices-


Here are the current major indices rally levels from 52WK lows as of week ending 8.4.23-

 

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

 

Stock Market Analysis Video for August 4th, 2023
Video from AlphaTrends Brian Shannon


ShadowTrader Video Weekly 8/6/23
Video from ShadowTrader Peter Reznicek
(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED!)

 

StonkForumers! Come join us on our stock market competitions for this upcoming trading week ahead!-

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StonkForums Weekly Stock Picking Contest & SPX Sentiment Poll (8/7-8/11) <-- click there to cast your weekly market direction vote and stock picks for this coming week ahead!

Daily SPX Sentiment Poll for Monday (8/7) <-- click there to cast your daily market direction vote for this coming Monday ahead!

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It would be pretty sweet to see some of you join us and participate on these!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead!

 

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Here are the most anticipated Earnings Releases for this upcoming trading week ahead.

***Check mark next to the stock symbols denotes confirmed earnings release date & time***

Monday 8.7.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

Monday 8.7.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW MONDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Tuesday 8.8.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Tuesday 8.8.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW TUESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Wednesday 8.9.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Wednesday 8.9.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW WEDNESDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Thursday 8.10.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Thursday 8.10.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THURSDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Friday 8.11.23 Before Market Open:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S AM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(T.B.A.)

Friday 8.11.23 After Market Close:

Spoiler: CLICK HERE TO VIEW FRIDAY'S PM EARNINGS TIMES & ESTIMATES!

(NONE.)

 

And finally here is the most anticipated earnings calendar for this upcoming trading week ahead-
($PLTR $DIS $BABA $RIVN $AMC $UPST $SMCI $UPS $LCID $LLY $TWLO $PLUG $MARA $TTD $NVO $DDOG $RBLX $NVTA $CELH $SOUN $IONQ $TSN $GOLD $SWKS $WYNN $LAZR $MGNI $APPS $CHGG $ARRY $SONY $DNA $BRK.B $MPW $TOST $PARA $LYFT $BROS $LI $SWAV $FIVN $CYBR $CPA $CGC $VTRS $PENN $RNG $NVEI $CLOV $OKE)


If you guys want to view the full earnings post please see this thread here-

• Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning August 7th, 2023 <-- click there to view!

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Monday to all of you and welcome to the new trading week and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are a little over an hour away from the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Monday, August the 7th, 2023!

 

Morning Lineup -- 8/7/23
Mon, Aug 7, 2023

After selling off more than 1% in afternoon trading into the close on Friday, US index ETFs are trading slightly higher pre-market with SPY up 20 bps and QQQ up 30 bps. There is little news to speak of other than a stronger than expected earnings report from Berkshire Hathaway over the weekend that has BRK/B trading up about 1.3% in pre-market trading.

As shown below, only three of the major US index ETFs tracked in our Trend Analyzer tool remain in overbought territory, while the rest are now neutral. The three that are still just slightly overbought are two small-cap ETFs (IJR, IWM) and the Dow 30 (DIA). Over the last five trading days, both the S&P (SPY, IVV) and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) are down roughly 1.25% -- not a big sell-off, but enough to cool things off a bit.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Monday, August 7th, 2023.

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Tuesday to all of you and welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are a little over 2 hours away from the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Tuesday, August the 8th, 2023!

 

Good Tuesday morning StonkForumers!

Here is this morning's pre-market news thread for those of you wanting to get a quick read before today's open-
<-- click there to read!

Hope everyone has a great new trading day ahead today!

 

Morning Lineup -- Mega Breakdowns -- 8/8/23
Tue, Aug 8, 2023

US equity futures are down quite a bit (-85 bps) this morning on weakness in China and Europe, and the S&P 500 (SPY) is currently set to give up all of yesterday's gains when it opens for trading.

The dollar is rallying while Treasury yields and oil prices are falling, and the only economic indicator of note today was the monthly release of small business sentiment from NFIB. Sentiment came in slightly higher than expected, but it's still very low relative to history.

As shown below, after reporting earnings over the weekend, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B) traded to a new all-time high yesterday.



Berkshire (BRK/B) is now the 7th largest stock in the S&P 500 with a market cap of $794 billion yesterday afternoon. $794 billion! As shown below, the 7th largest stock in the S&P ten years ago was Walmart (WMT) with a market cap of just $254 billion, and Apple in the top spot had a market cap of just $422 billion. Fast forward ten years and we now have five stocks with $1+ trillion market caps and two with $2+ trillion market caps.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Tuesday, August 8th, 2023.