Meaningless Monday – Kicking off a Pointless Week

32,797,400.

That was the volume (1/3 normal) on SPY last year on Monday, July 3rd – one of the lowest volume days of the year. With July 4th on Tuesday last year, nobody was returning from the Beach on Sunday just to fight traffic to get back there a day later. This week it will be Friday which will be a burned day but Wednesday will be a half day at best and good luck getting anyone to pay attention today and tomorrow.  

Look at the calendar for the week – other than Powell, who speaks on Tuesday morning (9:30) and Williams, who speaks on Friday morning (5:40), the rest of the Fed is taking a vacation this week – though we do get the Fed Minutes Wednesday afternoon – AFTER the NYSE closes at 1pm!

See – pointless!  What else is going on? I see PMI, ISM and Construction Spending this morning, Motor Vehicles and Jolts tomorrow, PMI, Factory Orders and ISM Services Wednesday and we are even having Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday but no one will be here. Happy Holiday’s folks, goodbye:  

I was going to go away this week but then I saw that EVERYONE is going away (predicted to be biggest travel day EVER) so I decided that, since I live in Florida anyway, why go somewhere else and be annoyed by crowds when I’ll have that all right here at home? I will pick a quieter week to go away and see someone else’s sites.  

If you need more evidence of how checked out people are this week – look at the earnings calendar: 

4, that’s it and I’ll be all 4 of them suck as they scheduled their earnings for when no one was looking. As goes the old adage “If an earnings report falls on a holiday and no one is around to hear it, does it cause a sell-off?” As to the broader market – most likely we will drift along near record highs as “THEY” certainly don’t want our family barbeque conversations to be about a market pullback – “THEY” want FOMO to spread among the celebrants.  

Meanwhile, there is stuff going on in the World as we enter the 2nd half of 2024 – but who cares?

• Where Stock Market Is Headed After Wild First Half: Five Charts
• The Quarter That Split the Market, in Charts
• 24-Hour Stock Trading Is Booming – and Wall Street Is Rattled
• Weekend News Round Up – Newsquawk Asia-Pac Market Open
• China Factory Activity Shrinks Again in Warning to Economy
• High-Speed Traders, Short Sellers Face Growing Asia Crackdown
• Marine Le Pen Crushes Macron — Again: Special Balance of Power
• Euro Gains on Le Pen Bets, China Eyed After PMI
• French Turnout Highest in Nearly 40 Years in Snap Election.

• Five Takeaways From France’s Election

• For Ukraine and Russia, a Deadly Summer Lies Ahead With Little Hope of Big Gains
• Gaza Militants Regroup and Rearm, Raising Threat of a Long War
• Price Action Indicates Lack Of Any True Conviction Or Depth Of Liquidity
• Retiring Wealthy Now Means More Than $3 Million In Many U.S. States
• CLOs Have Too Much Money and Are Running Out of Things to Buy.
• It’s Home-Building Season, but No One Is Buying Lumber
• A Real-Estate Fund Industry Is Bleeding Billions After Starwood Capped Withdrawals
• Failure to meet data center energy demand will jeopardize economic growth, utility executives warn
• Boeing reportedly agrees to buy supplier Spirit Aerosystems for $4.3 billion
• Amazon, Built by Retail, Invests in AI Future
• Chewy Stock Soars After ‘Roaring Kitty’ Discloses 6.6% Stake
• Fast-Food Giants Go to Battle Over Value Meals
• ‘Inside Out 2’ tops $1 billion at the global box office
• Hurricane Beryl forecast to become a Category 4 storm as it nears southeast Caribbean
• Supreme Court Set to Decide Trump’s Bid for Immunity
• 17 Years, $700 Million Wasted: The Stunning Collapse of New York’s Traffic Moonshot
• CDC Recommends New COVID-19 Vaccines For Nearly All Americans