DFG Navigator Archives | July 2024

Your Capital Markets Snapshot: July Has Been a Month for Rotations

July has been a month for rotations as we have seen presidential candidate polling swing following the attempted shooting of former President Trump and subsequently President Biden’s exit of the 2024 presidential campaign. Further, we have seen value and small cap stocks begin and sustain short-term outperformance of their growth and large cap peers. With Vice President Harris poised as the favored Democratic nominee to take on former President Trump, election odds are looking like more of a coin flip than they were prior to Biden’s bowing out. This political uncertainty can be expected to add uncertainty to market outlooks ahead of the November election. This is to be expected as history has shown market uncertainty tends to increase leading into elections and subsequently decrease back to normal levels.

Your Capital Markets Snapshot: Stocks Swung Back and Forth

It was a wild week as stocks swung back and forth beginning with an early-week rally after the attempted shooting of Donald Trump followed by weakness in tech stocks after the week ended with a global IT outage. For a second week in a row, we saw small cap stocks outperform their large cap peers and value outperform growth. Expectations remain high for an upcoming rate cut by the Federal Reserve in September as economic data showed signs of consumer strength, with retail sales numbers surprised to the upside, and slack in the labor market, as initial and continuing jobless claims surprised to the upside.

Your Capital Markets Snapshot: Large Cap Equities Delivered Impressive Performance

Despite a short week and economic data showing signs of a slowing economy, large cap equities delivered impressiveperformance, primarily fueled by the tech sector. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed the week at record highs as did the tech giants AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, META, and MSFT. While monthly job growth came in above estimates, the prior two months were revised down. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1%, its highest level since November 2021, with reported job openings exceeding expectations. Based on ISM data, the Manufacturing sector reported a contraction for the third consecutive month (and 19 of the last 20), while the Services/non-Manufacturing sector fell significantly from the prior month to its lowest level in 4 years and reported a contraction. Given signs of a softening economy, expectations for an upcoming Fed rate cut in September increased.

Your Capital Markets Snapshot: Equity Markets Experienced Mixed Week

The equity markets had a mixed week to close out the first half of the year; however, on a year-to-date basis, all three major equity indices have shown impressive gains. Economic news last week showed inflation continues to trend lower as the core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Index for May was reported in line with expectations with an annual gain at 2.6%.

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