[Outlook] And The Winners Are...

Will The Winning Trend Continue? And The Winners Are… Will The Winning Trend Continue? By Donn Goodman July 7, 2024 Welcome back subscribers and other readers. We all hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable Fourth of July holiday. As I said last week, we can never take our freedom for granted. As you get older, you realize and appreciate this more and more. God bless America…the land of the free! Jumping right into our weekly perspective, it has been surprising to look back since the start of 2024. I am not sure that many Wall Street pros got the markets right. Most, I believe, were much more conservative and projected we might see a 10-15% total return for all of 2024. Should we encounter a severe slowdown or even a recession, the S&P 500's return may be less than its current level of up more than 16%. As we will share with you later in this Outlook, one of our most dependable sources (who has been more accurate than most this year), Ryan Detrick of Carson, provides a few charts and statistics that suggest we will see more All-Time Highs in the S&P 500 for the remainder of the year and that we have more upward price appreciation to go. Last week, we provided our readers with the different market index returns. As you would expect, the NASDAQ was the real winner, although the S&P 500 was not far behind. If you have not yet read last week’s Market Outlook, [you can use the following link to review the article](). The major winners and biggest contributors to the S&P 500 for the first six months of 2024. I have provided a table below (courtesy of The Motley Fool) that shows the five biggest individual contributors to the S&P 500 from January 1, 2024 to June 28, 2024: The numbers above are staggering. Most of us cannot even fathom what $1 trillion dollars looks like so the idea that these five companies increased their aggregate market cap by $3.66 trillion is really quite hard to grasp. The S&P 500 produced a 14.5% return for the first 6 months of 2024, so these 5 companies produced 63.2% of that return. In other words, those 5 companies helped contribute 9.16% of the 14.5% return of the S&P 500. Without those 5 company’s contributions to the stock market, the other 495 companies only produced a return for the S&P 500 of 4.84%. Consider the fact that half of the S&P 500 companies (250 or more) had little to negative returns for the first 6 months of the year. The Sector (Modern Family) winners were… Given the heavy dose of technology stocks above one might think that technology (the Technology ETF - XLK) was the big winner. It was up 17.5% for the first six months but it was not the stand-out. Sister Semiconductor (a subset of technology) was the real winner with the Semiconductor ETF (SMH) up 49.08% for the first six months. If you subscribe to our ETF Sector Plus model or NQ3, you are well aware that Semiconductor stocks have been the big winners for our models. If you would like more information about these models or any of the others, please contact Rob@MarketGauge.com. If you are a professional advisor and would like additional information about using these models to manage your client’s assets, reach out to Ben@MarketGaugePro.com. The other sector winners for the first six months were… Not surprisingly, a few of the other Sector ETFs that were the big winners for the first six months were not company stock ETFS but included mining and material ETFs. Their performance put them right at the top of the list. I say not surprisingly because Mish has been discussing (and suggesting these) for the past 18 months. Additionally, our ETF model(s) have also taken advantage of metals and mining as part of their recent portfolio allocations. The winner of the recent Presidential Debate was…. According to Mish, Gold may be the biggest winner from the debates. We are aware that the markets tend to have a positive bias during major National election years, and we suspect that 2024 will be no different. Mish recently wrote that the real winner from the debate was: Owning metals. [We suggest that you read the article]( as it provides the reasons why you might consider adding the metals to your portfolio. Especially since, as noted above, Silver, Copper and Gold have been winners and that was amplified and reinforced this past week. And the economic winner this past week was…. The jobs report came out on Friday. While still a healthy number with a little over 200,000 jobs created for June, the previous month’s job report was restated and showed basically zero job growth. The unemployment rate increased to 4.1%. These are GOOD numbers if you are hopeful that the Federal Reserve may cut interest rates sooner than later. There are still many analysts and pundits who are hawkish and remain concerned that inflation is still too high and well above the Fed’s long-term target of 2%. Then there are those who are more dovish and believe that rates are too high, too restrictive and are punishing consumers with sky high interest rates and keeping the homeowner industry from functioning properly. These people see yesterday’s jobs information as helpful in motivating the Fed to cut rates soon. Yesterday, the futures betting pool jumped to over a 65% chance of a September interest rate cut and a better than 70% chance that we will see two (2) interest rate cuts, with the second coming after the election, sometime in November. And the winner for the best investment month is July. Again, if you have not yet read [last week’s Market Outlook go back and review it](=). Especially the charts that dealt with the historical returns of July. To reinforce the July narrative, we have taken information provided by our friends at Stock Trader’s Almanac (Jeffrey Hirsch) who have provided additional information below regarding the returns for July from the past 21 years. See below: On average, over the last 21 years, nearly all of July’s gains have occurred in the first 13 trading days. Once a bullish day, the last trading day of July has had a bearish bias over the last 21 years. In the election years since 1950, July has tended to be a dull month filled with choppy trading. Last week we mentioned that one of the reasons we believe the stock market has performed so well is due to the earnings of the S&P 500 companies coming in well above expectations. We have also commented that until earnings turn flat or begin to decelerate, it is unlikely that the market will nosedive beyond a normal correction. See the following data commentary and graph that follows: Use the links below to continue reading: - Global Earnings Trends - AAII sentiment - Relative Strength indicators - Bearish Market Breadth - Bullish implications of All-Time Highs - Second half performance after a strong first half - The Big View bullets - Keith’s Weekly market analysis [Click here to continue to the FREE analysis]()[Click here to continue to the PREMIUM analysis]() Best wishes for your trading, Donn Goodman Every week we review the big picture of the market's technical condition as seen through the lens of our Big View data charts. The bullets provide a quick summary organized by conditions we see as being risk-on, risk-off, or neutral. The video analysis dives deeper. Risk On - Price charts for SPY and QQQ are very strong, showing main indexes outside the upper end of the Bollinger bands though not quite setup for [mean reversion]() in Real Motion. (+) - [Sector rotation]() had more participants on the upside, led by technology and consumer discretionary. (+) - [Market Internals]() turned up modestly to marginal positive territory. Could see mean reversion with divergences in the oscillator relative to previous highs. The Nasdaq cumulative advance-decline line is sitting just off the lows, setting up for a possible divergence. (+) - Significant improvement in the [New High New Low]() ratio for the S&P 500 with everything stacked and positively sloped, as well as strength in the Nasdaq. (+) - Color Charts are giving a full bullish signal for the [Nasdaq](=)(+) Use the links below to continue reading: - Global Earnings Trends - AAII sentiment - Relative Strength indicators - Bearish Market Breadth - Bullish implications of All-Time Highs - Second half performance after a strong first half - The Big View bullets - Keith’s Weekly market analysis [Click here to continue to the FREE analysis and video.]()[Click here to continue to the PREMIUM analysis and video](=). Best wishes for your trading, Keith Schneider CEO MarketGauge P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 free ways we can help you reach your trading goals… - [Book a call with our Chief Strategy Consultant](), Rob Quinn. He can quickly guide you to the resources that you'd like best. - Get the foundational building blocks of many of our strategies from Mish's book, [Plant Your Money Tree: A Guide to Building Your Wealth](=), and accompanying bonus training. - [Review quick descriptions]( of our indicators, strategies, services and trading systems here. Get more - follow us here... Twitter [@marketgauge]( and [@marketminute]( and [Facebook]( To stop receiving this go [here.]( Got Questions?Office hours 9-5 ET (New York time) Email: info@marketgauge.com Live Chat: Go to bottom right corner of our [home page.]() Call: 888-241-3060 or 973-729-0485 There is substantial risk of loss associated with trading any securities including and not limited to stocks, ETFs, futures, and options. Only risk capital should be used to trade. Trading securities is not suitable for everyone. No representation is being made that the use of this strategy or any system or trading methodology will generate profits. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. To unsubscribe or customize your email settings, [click here](=). [Unsubscribe]( MarketGauge.com 70 Sparta Ave, Suite 203 Sparta, New Jersey 07871 United States (888) 241-3060 MarketGauge.com | Sparta, New Jersey & Santa Fe, New Mexico | info@marketgauge.com | (888) 241-3060