Interest rate futures continue to price 100% odds of a rate cut at the next Fed meeting on July 31.

Stocks edged lower for a second straight session today and today was the second lowest volume day of the year on NYSE.

“Optimistic people tend to succeed not simply because they believe everything will turn out right, but because the expectation of success makes them work harder. If you expect little, you will not be motivated even to try.”

"Recap July 1"

Risk appetite reigned, as an announced “trade truce” from this weekend’s G-20 meeting in Osaka helped the S&P 500 reach a fresh record close, while WTI crude edged back to $59 a barrel.  By the same token, Treasury yields rose across the curve, gold got smacked by 2% to finish at $1,384 an ounce, and the VIX fell to 14, its lowest close in nearly two months.   

                                              I miss my girl, Moonshine.

Start of a new quarter.

Best June performance for SP-500 since 1955, and the best DJ-30 performance for the month of June since 1938.

Stocks caught a solid bid, narrowing the week’s losses to 0.3% on the S&P 500 and leaving the broad index higher by more than 17% year-to-date through the second quarter, its best first half performance since 1997.

Hey !

End of quarter.

Yesterday was a tough day for momentum stocks especially software stocks which took the biggest hit of the day though a few stocks did make some minor gains. The last week in June is often tough as we end the quarter and have the Russell indexes rebalancing. The first few weeks in July are usually better with earnings starting around July 20th.

Gold since 1920

                                    Source: The Bloomberg