I participated the most of Nasdaq rally.
Weekly Wrap for August 1, 2016
(from briefing)
Last Update: 05-Aug-16 16:06 ET
The stock market entered Friday with a modest weekly loss, but a rally that developed in the wake of a better than expected Employment Situation Report for July (255,000; Briefing.com consensus 185,000) helped the S&P 500 log its fifth weekly gain in the past six weeks. The benchmark index added 0.4% for the week while the Nasdaq Composite (+1.1%) outperformed. Both indices marked fresh all-time highs on Friday.
Investors received another heavy dose of quarterly earnings, but the latest batch of results came from companies that had little market-moving cachet. At the end of the week, nearly 90.0% of S&P 500 components had reported earnings, showing a 3.5% decline in blended earnings, which was worse than the 3.2% contraction projected by FactSet.
In addition to earnings, investors received the latest policy statement from the Bank of England, which proved to be a dovish surprise. The central bank lowered its key rate by 25 basis points to 0.25%, increased its purchase program to GBP435 billion from GBP375 billion, and announced it will buy up to GBP10 billion of corporate debt. The news pressured the pound into the 1.31 area against the dollar, but somewhat surprisingly, the stepped up easing efforts had little impact on global equity markets.
The S&P 500 advanced to a new record high on Friday after the Employment Situation report for July (255,000; Briefing.com consensus 185,000) beat estimates, showing above-consensus average hourly earnings growth of 0.3% (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%). Over the past year, average hourly earnings have risen 2.6%, but rate hike expectations remain subdued with the fed funds futures market not pricing in a 50.0%+ chance or a rate hike until March 2017 (51.2%).
| Index | Started Week | Ended Week | Change | % Change | YTD % |
| DJIA | 18432.24 | 18543.53 | 111.29 | 0.6 | 6.4 |
| Nasdaq | 5162.13 | 5221.12 | 58.99 | 1.1 | 4.3 |
| S&P 500 | 2173.60 | 2182.87 | 9.27 | 0.4 | 6.8 |
| Russell 2000 | 1219.94 | 1231.09 | 11.15 | 0.9 | 8.4 |
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