July 10, 2023

Markets:

Stock futures were little changed Monday as investors prepared for a slate of inflation data later in the week and braced for the start of the second-quarter earnings season.

This week’s inflation data follows a rate hike skip at the June Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The consumer price index report is due out Wednesday, followed by the producer price index — a measure of wholesale price pressures — due Thursday.

Wall Street is coming off a losing week. The S&P 500 pulled back 1.16%, while the Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.92% and 1.96%, respectively.

Despite nonfarm payrolls growing less than expected in June, slightly stronger-than-expected wage growth raised concern over the potential for more Federal Reserve rate hikes.

Investors also have a slew of quarterly earnings reports to consider this week. Finance behemoths BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citi will all report and kick off the second-quarter earnings season.

China’s producer price index fell further than expected with a decline of 5.4% year-on-year, further than a fall of 5% that economists surveyed by Reuters expected.

Portfolio:

We enter the new trading week filled with excitement as data and earnings will dominate market direction thsi week.  The last two weeks, mostly due to end of quarter and the U.S. holiday, provided us with lackluster ttype of trading action that only sucked premium out on both sides of the trade.  Do not lose focus on the overall market picture.  This is where folks get lost and lose.  Where they chase meaningless price action when the overll trend has not changed.  The S&P, above 4350, is in a monster bullish channel / wave.  As we've been stating sincee January, above this line provides the best pain trade and the chase is on.  With earnings season beginnng, I cannot stress enough the magintude this market has for potential.  We can easily pivot if need be, but the pain trade is higher and can provide monster opportunity.  This is what we want!

For our open positions continue to work your exit points.  We look for COMM, SRAD, S, EXEL, and DKNG to have a monster week ahead.  Let's have an outstanding week!