July 29, 2024

Markets:

Stock futures rose modestly on Monday morning as Wall Street gears up for a busy week of corporate earnings.

The move in futures comes after a volatile week in the stock market.

This week’s earnings slate will play a role in determining whether tech stocks can now bounce back. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Apple and Amazon are all set to report their quarterly results in the coming days.

Another key event this week will be the Federal Reserve meeting, with the central bank set to release a new policy statement on Wednesday. The Fed is not expected to cut interest rates this week, but traders will be looking for clues as to how likely the central bank is to make a move at its September meeting.

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Markets Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the market is not expecting a rate cut this week.

Traders in the Fed fund futures market put the probability of the central bank holding rates steady for this meeting at roughly 96%, according to the CME Fed Watch tool.

However, traders do overwhelmingly expect one cut at the September meeting.

Portfolio:

We enter this monster week holding positions in USAP, TSLL, S, and GBTC.  This week is the main event short term.  Earnings, Fed, and technical trend lines that will dictate the next several weeks!  

We have monster market moving earnings reports this week. A strong showing should erase last weeks losses. 

Thursday of last week created a swing-tradeable low as we noted in our premarket and market updates.  We now see if this plays out further.

After the close Tuesday: MSFT & AMD. This will be a good test for the market and ultimately the potential low created on Thursday.

After the close Wednesday: META, ARM & QCOM report. 

After the close Thursday: AMZN, AAPL & INTC. 

If big tech holds it together expect strength to come back into the market. Last Thursday was a spot to try for a low, as long as that area holds it should remain the line in the sand going forward in the near term. 

We will look for opportunity today and tomorrow leading into these monster earning reports but again we approach this week being super patient.  The real opportunity will come AFTER all these reports and we see where price sits at.  Remember, this is basically the same setup we had back in April, a terrible two week period followed by a monster move and MONSTER profits.  We look for the repeat cycle.  Be ready but stay patient.  Allow this all to materialize.  We are positioned well but will add with A+ set-ups.