Market Direction Weekly Closing Numbers

Market Direction: BULLISH alert issued 6/2/2016

The economy

The stock market ended the second week of August on a flat note, but not before creeping into record territory. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 set new intraday record highs, finishing the week just above their flat lines. The S&P 500 added 0.1% while the Dow and Nasdaq climbed 0.2% apiece.

The past week was not particularly exciting as summer doldrums set in, leading to narrow ranges and limited trading volume. To that point, average daily NYSE floor volume checked in at just 728 million shares, which was well below the 20-day average of 808 million.

A few more quarterly reports crossed the wires during the week with retailers receiving some added focus. The likes of Macy’s (M), Nordstrom (JWN), Kohl’s (KSS), and Ralph Lauren (RL) enjoyed big gains after beating expectations, but Friday's release of the July Retail Sales report told a different tale. The report showed that retail sales were unchanged in July (Briefing.com consensus +0.4%) after being up 0.8% in June (revised from 0.6%). Excluding autos, retail sales declined 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%) to follow a 0.9% increase in July (revised from 0.7%).

All in all, rate hike expectations, estimated by the fed funds futures market, have receded a bit more. The implied probability of a hike in March 2017 ticked down from last week's 51.2% to 50.1%.

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By the numbers the weekly closing index numbers compared to the initial BULLISH recommendation closing numbers: 

Stock Market Closing Numbers
compared to Recommendation Numbers
	6/2/2016	8/12/2016	Difference
Dow Jones	17,838.56	18,576.47	737.91
Nasdaq	4,971.36	5,232.89	261.53
S&P 500	2,105.26	2,184.05	78.79

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