So much for the summer doldrums. Over the last few trading sessions, stocks seemed to have regained whatever mojo they had lost since the beginning of the season.
Even the recent defeats to the Republican healthcare bill didn’t dampen the spirits of traders through the week. All in all, stocks continued to push through to new record highs. It certainly wasn’t data propelling stocks over the last seven days. This week featured a dearth of economic metrics, and what was released – housing, manufacturing and labor talking points – came in mixed.
Perhaps investors were pleased with earnings so far. The so-called earnings season is upon us and this week featured plenty of bellwethers announcing their second-quarter profit reports. While it’s still early in the reporting schedule, many firms continue to show rising profits as well as a return to higher sales.
At the end of the day, stocks have seemed to recover from whatever was affecting them over the last month or so.
Check out last week’s Market Wrap here.
Monday
Despite low volumes, traders dove headfirst into tech stocks on Monday. After the last month of negative returns for the sector, plenty of bargains could still be found. As were there bargains in consumer discretionary and retail stocks, which also saw heavy buying activity. Another positive on the day was great news coming from China. The leading emerging market managed to report GDP gains of 6.9%, beating estimates. However, the meager volume proved to be problematic when it came to finding sellers or buyers for equities. As a result, stocks were mixed on the day.
