August 15, 2024

Markets:

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures advanced Thursday morning as investors gained confidence in the economy following encouraging economic data that helped ease recession worry.

Retails sales increased 1% in July, far surpassing an estimate from Dow Jones that forecast a 0.3% uptick. Also separately, weekly jobless claims fell for the week. The data served as a boon to investors and a broader market trying to mount a comeback from an August rout tied to concerns about a slowing economy that arose following July’s disappointing jobs report on August 2nd.

After a 2% gain this week, the S&P 500 is now less than 4% below its record. The three major U.S. indexes are now trading above their Aug. 2 closing level, which was the session before the global stock market crash on Aug. 5 that was largely driven by investors’ concerns about an economic slowdown and an unexpected unwind of the yen carry trade.

Encouraging inflation data this week had largely swept away investors’ recessionary fears prior to Thursday’s swath of economic data, and led to a rebound in equities following last week’s sharp global sell-off.

Consumer spending increased more-than-expected in July, adding another layer of positive economic data to investors hoping to continue a recent market rally.

U.S. Retail sales increased 1% in July, surpassing an estimate from Dow Jones that forecast 0.3%. Excluding auto-related figures, sales ticked up 0.4%, which was also better than a 0.1% forecast.

Portfolio:

Monster session brewing! Patience really paying off now. We enter the session holding setups in SMTC, NU, TSLL, and ZETA. Queue is igniting with force we have not seen since the start of the year! SPY above 547, QQQ monster chart in play on the daily and more. These patterns are igniting for monster runways ahead! Really not much more to say other than let's get ready to attack this. Be ready and let's have a great week.