Congratulations on surviving Hurricane Hilary and the subsequent rains that have followed! Personally, we were very thankful that it was mostly a dud (especially compared to the hurricanes I experienced living in Florida).
A big congratulations to Spain and its supporters, who won the Women's World Cup this past Sunday! Our sons had a blast having middle-of-the-night watch parties in our house during the tournament. They were fun for mom and dad too, though we are also very happy to go back to our US-time scheduled sporting events and regular sleep schedule. What fun events have marked the end of your summer?
And now onto the weekly recap:
It was a generally good week for the mega-cap names and a relatively lackluster week for the broader market. To wit: the market-cap weighted S&P 500 rose 0.8% this week while the Invesco S&P 500 Equal-Weight ETF (RSP) posted a fractional loss. The Russell 2000 was down 0.3% for the week and the S&P Midcap 400 Index was flat. The Nasdaq Composite gained 2.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.4%.
With their gains this week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite broke a three-week losing streak.
There wasn't a lot of consistency in the trading action this week, which saw its share of gyrations in a week accented with light volume and big news items that included the July Existing Home Sales and New Home Sales reports, the preliminary Manufacturing and Services PMI readings for August, NVIDIA's (NVDA) earnings report, results from a large and diverse batch of retailers, and Fed Chair Powell's policy-oriented speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium.
In brief:
The best-performing sectors this week were information technology (+2.6%), consumer discretionary (+1.1%), and communication services (+1.0%). The commonality is that they all have mega-cap stocks under their roof. The energy sector (-1.4%) was the biggest decliner this week with oil prices fading some on continued concerns about China's weakening economy.
That weakening prompted the PBOC to cut its one-year loan prime rate by 10 basis points to 3.45% on Monday and officials to urge financial institutions to assist in stabilizing the stock market. On a related note,Reutersreported Friday that China is planning to lower the duty on stock trading by 50%. China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.6% on Friday and lost 2.2% for the week.
Separately, the Treasury market had its own gyrations this week. The 2-yr note yield saw a trading range that spanned from 4.92% to 5.10%. It settled the week at 5.05%, up 14 basis points for the week. The 10-yr note yield saw a trading range that spanned from 4.18% to 4.35%. It settled the week at 4.24%, down one basis point for the week.
The U.S. Dollar Index was up 0.8% for the week to 104.19.
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The data provided is for informational purposes only and is not an endorsement of any security, mutual fund, sector, or index. The information contained here is not guaranteed as to accuracy or completeness. All economic and performance information is historical and does not guarantee future results.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted index comprising 30 widely traded blue chip U.S. common stocks. The NASDAQ Composite Index is a market-value-weighted index of all common stocks listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The S&P 500 Index tracks the performance of 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States. The MSCI Europe, Australasia, and Far East (EAFE) Index tracks the performance of publicly traded large- and mid-cap stocks of companies in those regions. The Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) shows the market’s expectation of 30-day volatility and is constructed using the implied volatilities of a wide range of S&P 500 Index options. Weekly and year-to-date figures for the VIX show percentage changes, not investment returns. The Russell 2000 Index tracks the performance of approximately 2,000 publicly traded small-cap companies in the United States. It is not possible to invest directly in an index.
The Treasury yield curve is derived from available U.S. Treasury securities trading in the market and is provided directly by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The spread measures the difference in yield between two government securities. A normal (positive) yield curve occurs when longer-term rates are higher than shorter-term rates. The opposite holds true for an inverted yield curve. Year-to-date changes in U.S. Treasury bond yields are shown in basis points (bps). One hundred basis points equals one percent.
Oil prices are represented by West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil.
The G20 countries comprise a mix of the world’s largest advanced and emerging economies, representing about two-thirds of the world’s population, 85% of global gross domestic product, and over 75% of global trade.