July ended with a thud after Chair Powell’s presser this afternoon sent the S&P 500 lower by 1.09% at the close.  Even with today’s 1% declines, though, US equities posted solid returns during the month.

Below is our asset class performance matrix showing total returns for various ETFs today, in July, and year-to-date.

Interestingly, Consumer Staples was the sector that got hit hardest today with a decline of more than 2%.  Consumer Discretionary, Materials, Industrials, and Technology also fell more than 1%.

For the month of July, most country ETFs ended up struggling badly even though the US gained 1%+.  France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Spain, and the UK all fell more than 2% in July.  Silver was the best asset class in July with a gain of more than 6%.

Year to date, the best performer in the entire matrix is the US Tech sector with a gain of more than 30%.  Russia ranks second at +25%.  Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Premium to receive our best equity research on a daily basis.

President Trump has raised a lot of eyebrows recently with his comments saying that despite all the good going on in the economy and stock market, the DJIA would be “10,000 points higher than already a very high number” were it not for the Fed.  While it is hard to believe that the DJIA would be 10,000 points higher had the Fed not hiked rates, it is interesting to note that on FOMC days since Powell became the Fed Chair, that the DJIA has seen a cumulative decline of over 1,000 points.  Throughout history, Fed days have historically been positive market days, but under Powell, they have been nothing of the sort. Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional, and receive full access to all of our must-read content.

Maybe they’re still feeling the sting of January 2018 when they basically went ‘all-in’ on stocks (and bitcoin for that matter) and then saw prices crater for two months, but despite more new highs for equities, US consumers haven’t been really quick to embrace the market.  In Tuesday’s Consumer Confidence Report, for the question which asks consumers for their views on the direction of US equities, 41.6% expect prices to continue rising, while only 22.4% expect lower prices.  Granted, the 41.6% reading is a relatively big increase from June when the reading was at 33.5%, but it’s still below the 42.1% reading from May and the peak reading of 51.0% from January 2018. As shown in the green line of the chart, ever since the peak reading in January 2018, we have been seeing lower highs in the percentage of consumers expecting higher stock prices.

Consumers are also asked to give their views on interest rates in each month’s Consumer Confidence Report, and here we’ve seen some interesting moves over the last few months.  Ever since the Fed started to pivot towards lower rates at the start of the year, the percentage of consumers expecting higher interest rates has declined rapidly.  From a recent high of over 70% in late 2018, less than half of consumers now expect higher interest rates.  Meanwhile, the percentage of investors expecting lower rates has risen from near historic lows up to 15.7%.  For both of these series, July’s readings were the most extreme since late 2012.  Keep in mind too, that this comes as long-term treasury yields are close to historic lows.  Start a two-week free trial to Bespoke Institutional, and receive full access to all of our must-read content.

Please click the image below to view our August 2019 market calendar.  This calendar includes the S&P 500’s average percentage change and average intraday chart pattern for each trading day during the upcoming month.  It also includes market holidays and options expiration dates plus the dates of key economic indicator releases.  Start a two-week free trial to one of Bespoke’s three premium research levels.