PUT IN WORK (7/22/2024)

The stock market had its worst performance months just last week, with indices falling heavily across the board. Starting with arguably the most negatively affected index, the Nasdaq (QQQ) fell a whopping 3.7%, while the S&P 500 (SPY) ended down an admittedly less harsh 2%.

Monday and Tuesday saw markets push higher, with the S&P 500 hitting another all-time high on Tuesday. Although bank earnings were mixed, that didn’t deter investors over the first couple of days. Many significant tech stocks also slid throughout Monday and Tuesday: Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOGL), to name a few. Naturally, these heavy losses prevented the Nasdaq from finding as much footing as the S&P 500, but even so, the index managed to end up by the end of those two days. Interestingly, investors seemed to be taking money out of these larger indices and placing them in smaller cap stocks, pushing the Russell 2000 (RUT) to heights it hasn’t seen since January 2022. Even so, it, too, fell throughout the latter half of the week.

Investors still have their eyes keenly focused on upcoming earnings. While last week saw primarily bank earnings reports, this week will see companies such as Coca-Cola (KO), Tesla (TSLA), Spotify (SPOT), Southwest Airlines (LUV), Dexcom (DXCM), and even more banks reporting. There are a few elephants in the room, however. To keep it short and sweet, first up is the CrowdStrike (CRWD) debacle that took place last Friday. This misstep resulted in technological failures all around the globe—failures that, even still, are resulting in company-wide outages and massive disruptions pertaining to airlines, retail stores, the stock market, you name it. Just yesterday, Joe Biden also announced that he’ll be dropping out of the presidential race, forfeiting his chance at a second term and elevating Kamala Harris. However, how this will affect the market will only be known in time. Lastly, just a couple of weeks from now, the Fed will come together and decide what to do with interest rates, and of course, many investors are looking forward to it. As you can see, there's a whole lot going on, but we're hopeful for the future.

(Nasdaq ETF (QQQ) price from July 2023 - 2024 — each candle is 1 week. Chart provided by tradingview.com.)

PORTFOLIO UPDATE

The majority of our stocks remained fairly neutral, as opposed to the overwhelmingly negative movement we saw in the Nasdaq and S&P 500. This is likely due to the positive movement we saw in the Russell 2000, as mentioned above. We plan to hold all currently owned stocks for the foreseeable future. As always, thank you for reading, and happy investing.