They Run The Bulls in Pamplona!

Equities start the day higher as they run the Bulls in Pamplona! If I was a better writer I would look back in history and see how many times we closed in the green this week but that requires about 10 minutes of research and I can’t be bothered. What’s up everyone….what did I miss? A sideways market mired in a weak sauce trade war, rife with overvalued stocks late in the cycle? Check. A flattening yield curve, tariffs, political wrangling over a random lawyer from Yale, plastic straws, and football coming home to England? Check. Sounds like we got ourselves an exciting summer. So hey…are you worried about any of that? Yes? Then welcome to the wonderful world of investing where worrying happens 95% of the time (the other 5% is when you should really fret). I’ve seen this insane market both rise and fall on Tariff tweets. I’ve seen it fret over China selling its Treasuries, Trump insulting our allies, and Elon Musk putting up a tent to make 5k cars. That's JUST HOW IT WORKS, there is no steady state, this train will never pull into a station and make you feel comfortable about owning stocks. Thankfully earnings are upon us so we are about to get a fresh look at Corporate America.  Our economy continues to suggest positive but modest growth which is consistent with single digit top line growth from S&P companies. Is a “Trade War” problematic?  Of course it is, in fact you could argue that the biggest threat to the market comes from stupidity of policy (is that a term?  It should be). I’ve been in the camp that the market will resolve higher, not lower, and I remain in that camp even with all the noise swirling around us. There’s juice left in this orange, don’t throw it out yet!

After the open we banged our heads on 2800 which, for now, remains the most important level in stock market history. If we can manage to break that and hold a retest, one could argue that we’ve finally crossed that bridge… over… trouuubbled water….I WILL EASE YOUR MIND (you’ll sing it all day).  No economic data to speak of, Trump was on a plane to Europe so no tweets to speak of, may as well do a breakdown of winners and losers. Dr. Pepper Snapple (ticker used to be DPS) completed their merger with Keurig and jumped 11%! Apparently they are now called Keurig Dr Pepper (new ticker symbol KDP) instead of Dr Pepper Snapple so sorry Snapple lovers, no one cares about you anymore. Actually can we just rename the company please? Call it Fizzy Caffeine, or Weaksauce coffee, or 23 flavors but really tastes like cherries mixed with prune juice. COST hit another new all-time high because AMZN isn’t selling 32 lbs of Nutmeg and Kirkland branded wipes. Other winners PEP, WYNN, SO, MU, and PG. Losers were HTZ, CERN, BIIB, CMG, and TPX. Why is there always a mattress store across from a mattress store? In fact why are there so many mattress stores, I mean I’ve bought one in the past 10 years. Hey Bezos, head on over to mattress town if you’re looking to disrupt another slow lumbering consumer segment. By lunch we were still solidly south of the 2,800 Maginot line going nowhere fast.

The rest of the day brought nothing special as we closed at 2,793, up 0.3%. So close…we are so close to greatness we just need that one push which hopefully comes from bank earnings on Friday. I wanted to end on an interesting question posed on TWTR. The $AAPL app store is celebrating its 10th year of existence so someone wondered “what is the app that most changed your life the most in the past decade”. I thought about it for a while, looking for something profound to say but I think the answer is quite simple. It’s either iMessage or Google Maps. We have the ability to speak to anyone in the world instantly without dialing a phone and hoping it connects. We can do this from anywhere including 30k feet above sea level and get instantaneous responses (well except for my wife who literally never answers). That app is a game changer for human global communication. We also have the ability to go anywhere on the planet and never get lost. Do you know how many times I’ve pulled out my phone to find a client office or wander in a place I’ve never been without having to worry about it? Too many to count. Those two apps truly made the world a better place. 

Final Score:  Dow +58bps, S&P500 +35bps, Nasdq +4bps, Rusk -53bps

News Highlights:

We are going to end with people being awesome because I desperately need some inspiration in my life right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ_3P0O5hSM

Have a good night.