Weekly Market Recap – July 5th, 2019

In the Markets

As the shortened week marked the United States’ 243rd birthday, President Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka yielded progress as China and the U.S. agreed to suspend new tariffs and renew negotiations. Additionally, the June employment report showed 224,000 new jobs added in June. This was the strongest month since January, as well as exceeding the 161,000 per month average of 2019. Equity markets experienced minor pullbacks following the strong employment report, potentially due to fears that healthy economic indicators will push the fed away from future interest rate cuts in July.

Despite the small dip towards the end of the week, the S&P still finished up 1.7% this week, near its all-time high set on Wednesday. The Dow Jones climbed 1.2%, and the NASDAQ gained 1.9%. The S&P 500 posted its strongest first half of the year since 1997, up 17.4% through the end of June, and 19.3% year to date. The Dow Jones has managed a 15.4% YTD growth, while the NASDAQ has gained 23% YTD.

Crude oil futures fell on the week despite OPEC’s agreement to extend its production cuts for another nine months. WTI futures dropped 1.64% and Brent crude fell 3.49%. While U.S. and China relations saw a glimpse of sunlight, tensions continued to grow between the U.S. and Iran as Trump imposed sanctions against 9 Iranian military leaders. Heating oil followed suit, down 2.04%, while gasoline’s losses were more muted, down just 0.67%. Natural gas made its third consecutive week of gains, up 4.77%.

Precious metals lost on the week as the USD posted gains, with the sole exception of palladium, which gained 2.46% on the week. Gold fell 0.77%, silver dropped 2.22%, and platinum plummeted 3.07%.

Agricultural commodities posted varied results this week. Soybeans and wheat fell, losing 3.21% and 1.73% respectively. Corn outperformed the rest of the sector, gaining 3.27%. Coffee gained 1.11%, while sugar finished almost flat, up just 0.32%. Milk exceeded coffee and sugar this week, gaining 6.82%. Lean hogs began the week strongly, up 2.25% through Tuesday’s close, however, by the end of the week they fell, finishing almost flat, retaining just 0.03% of its early week gains.

World Cup Trading Championships

Durai Ramasamy finished the week in first place again, finishing the week with a net return of 234.3%. Kurt Sakaeda stayed right on Durai’s heels, closing Friday with a net return of 189.9%. Eduardo Ramos kept his hands on 3rd place, finishing the week at a 116% net return, but Holger Groechel ended the week less than a percentage point behind him with a net return of 115.1%. The top 5 was finished by Fabien Fischer, who returned to the leaderboard with a 93.8% net return.

Trading futures and forex involves significant risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. World Cup Championship (WCC ) accounts do not necessarily represent all the trading accounts controlled by a given competitor. WCC competitors may control accounts that produce results substantially different than the results achieved in their WCC accounts. WCC entrants may trade more than one account in the competition.