Weekly Market Recap – July 26th, 2019

In the Markets

With 40% of S&P 500 companies having reported earnings for the quarter, the index advanced another 1.7% on the week. The NASDAQ also gained on strong earnings reports, up 2.3% on the week. Most of the earnings reports came in better than analysts’ expectations, sparking continued growth from the S&P 500 as it eclipsed a 20% YTD return. A further boon to equities’ performance came in the form of better than expected second-quarter GDP growth estimates with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.1%. While the other major indices saw growth on the week, including a 2% gain by the Russell 2000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished almost flat, up just 0.1%, due in part to a steep 8.6% decline in Boeing.

The oil products saw muted gains following last week’s precipitous drop. WTI crude rose 1.02% and Brent futures advanced 1.58%. Gasoline bested heating oil, gaining 1.84% compared to 0.78%. Unlike the rest of the energy sector, natural gas did not see a rebound from last week’s losses, dropping an additional 3.64% on the week.

Precious metals were a mixed bag this week. Gold dropped 0.54% while silver climbed 1.25%. Platinum and palladium both gained on the week, up 2.25% and 1.82% respectively, while copper fell 1.9%.

Grains and soybeans fell on the week. Wheat’s drop was the least substantial, down 1.43%, while soybeans lost 2.18% and corn dipped 3.77%. Lean hogs followed up last week’s meteoric rise with a smaller but still significant gain of 3.03%. Sugar advanced 3.71%, milk eked out a small 0.4% gain, but coffee did not follow suit, losing 6.88% on the week.

World Cup Trading Championships

Durai Ramasamy maintained first place at a net return of 222.8%. Second through fourth place, however, were separated from one another by less than 20%. Kurt Sakaeda managed to hold on to second place for another week with his net return of 177.8%, but close on his heels were Holger Groechel and Eduardo Ramos with their net returns of 162.7% and 159.8% respectively. The top 5 was rounded out by newcomer to the leaderboard Bruno Franca, who kept the top 5 all in triple digits with a net return of 103.1%.

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.