Going into the end of July, the U.S. stock markets are holding near their all time highs. All three of the major U.S. indexes (represented by the $DIA, $SPY, and the $QQQ) have been hovering near all time highs and occasionally making shallow new highs.
$QQQ remains the strongest of all three indices. Strangely, the Delta variant seemed to relax the market concerns about a rapid end to quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve. At this point, technology markets are responding to government stimulus and expectations that interest rates will remain low for the near to intermediate term.
Currently, the Dow is near its all time highs but has not squeezed quite as high as the $QQQ and the $SPY. The $DIA is likely the biggest beneficiary if inflation concerns reemerge.
($DIA represents the ETF for the Dow Jones Industrial Average)
The general trend this earnings season has been for companies to beat earnings expectations, yet the stocks do not really respond in price. $NFLX started this trend as it was actually down after it announced excellent earnings results, but guided that future subscriber growth will be sluggish compared to last year’s numbers.
$AAPL crushed their earnings results, yet the stock is down because it is expected that the semiconductor chip shortage will affect future sales in upcoming quarters. iPhone sales have been up, but without chips to match demand, we will see the effects in future revenues.
$BTC surged from below $30K back to above $40K which can be seen below from the chart $GBTC (the exchange traded fund that follows bitcoin). This move up was partially driven by a rumor that $AMZN would start to accept $BTC as a form of payment. That rumor started because $AMZN posted a job opening for a payment specialist with a background in digital assets and Cryptocurrencies.
Usually, when markets are at their highs and even good earnings are unable to drive them higher, it is a sign that they are ready to correct. It is best to be cautious and book your profits if you have them as we are entering August. Statistically, August begins the most bearish three month period of the year (consisting of August, September, and October). Trade well and be ready for markets to correct in the short term.
Market Research and Analysis provided by Michael DiGioia, Director of Educational Services
What’s New from DAS
We released a new production version during the month of July: 5.6.4.13. This version includes the following list of enhancements and bug fixes to the DAS Trader Pro platform:
Enhancements
-Added Copy/Cut/Paste buttons and Save/Load hotkey layout menu items for montage hotkey buttons.
-Added order template for complex order.
-Added “TMP not change trigger order” to trading settings to not changing trigger order fields when clicking primary order TMP button.
-Added Locate total cost not calculated for offered locate orders when window is first opened.
-Added mouse scroll for the level2 window.
-Added comparison for L2BID/ASK hotkey with level1 bid/ask.
-Added for trigger order hotkey script, Share/Price will be filled correctly for each trigger order.
-Added upgrade button for upgrade prompt dialog.
Bug Fixes
-Bug fix – Some settings in Options Chain window can’t be saved.
-Bug fix – Stop loss alert window’s grid not reset for new trading day logon.
-Bug fix – Group window relocates/resizes after loading layout.
-Bug fix – Crash fix for “Merge partial fill trades”
We highly recommend that you review the release notes here.
Please be sure to install the latest version of the DAS Trader Pro platform. You can do this very easily from DAS by clicking Tools > Auto Upgrade. You can learn more about the Auto Upgrade feature in our Knowledge Base.
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Keep Up with Our Ongoing Video Series
Our newest video series: Styles of Trading is being released every Friday on our YouTube channel.
Join Mike DiGioia as he covers different types of trading styles and strategies, so be sure to follow us on YouTube, as well as our other social media platforms: @dastrader.
