Weekly Market Recap – July 20th, 2018
In the Markets
Grains rebounded from last week’s steep drop off, as soybeans recovered 3.66%, corn climbed 4.02%, and wheat rose 3.82%. Oil fell again, with WTI futures down 1.83%, and Brent Crude futures falling 2.81%.
Precious metals fell this week, with gold down 0.81% and silver down 1.68%. Platinum had a better week, but still dropped 0.1%. In a rare joint movement, the dollar index also fell on the week down 0.29%.
The major stock indices showed little net movement this last week. The Dow Jones showed the best performance, up 0.2%, the S&P 500 finished flat on the week, while the NASDAQ fell 0.1%. The Russell 2000 outperformed all three, gaining 0.6%.
World Cup Trading Championships
On Thursday Kurt Sakaeda finally finished atop the leaderboard, vaulting himself above Jan Smolen, becoming the first trader outside of Smolen and Skarp to claim the top spot this year. Smolen rallied on Friday, however, reclaiming first place and finishing the week with a net return of 131.95%. Kurt Sakaeda finished in second with a net return of 116.43, while Carlos Eisenberg rallied to break into the top 3 for the first time this year, breaking the 100% mark for the first time this year, closing at 101.81%. Paul Skarp finished in fourth at 80.7%, and Takumaru Sakakibara rounded out the top 5 again with a net return of 43.62%.
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.