July 31, 2023

Markets:

Stock futures rose slightly Monday as Wall Street looked to cap off a strong July, and braced for another busy week of earnings.

Stocks have rallied this month, with the S&P up 3% and on pace for its fifth positive month in a row for the first time since its seven-month streak ending August 2021. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has gained 3.8% month to date, also on track for its fifth straight winning month.

Investors have grown increasingly more hopeful about the prospects of a soft landing scenario in recent weeks as economic data shows ongoing strength in the labor market and cooling inflation, and second-quarter earnings continue to come in better than expected.

Last week, the Fed also hiked rates to their highest level in more than 22 years after passing a much-anticipated quarter-point hike. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank will make data-driven decisions on a “meeting-by-meeting” basis.

Along with earnings from names like Amazon, Apple, CVS Health and Starbucks, investors will shift their focus to Friday’s big jobs report. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect the U.S. economy to have added 200,000 jobs in July. Nonfarm payrolls increased 209,000 in June.

U.S. Treasury yields were mixed on Monday as investors digested the latest inflation data, which could affect Federal Reserve monetary policy, and considered the outlook for the economy.

Portfolio:

We enter the last trading day of the month and the first trading session of this highly anticipated week holding set-ups in RIVN & Key. Queue continues to ignite, and we want to be a bit more exposed to this market in the coming weeks. We expect a bit of a swing with the last trading session of the month here, but the overall trend remains intact, and we continue to fire higher. Specific sectors continue to ignite with opportunity and this week we have the highly anticipated earnings report from AAPL and AMZN.

Be on alert and ready this week. Monster week in play.