Holiday-shortened Week – Monday Morning Market Memo – July 3, 2023

Good morning,

We’ll keep this brief, as we hope you are busy enjoying the holiday-shortened week.  Starting with a look at last week’s action, the major stock market averages all posted decent gains, fueled largely by lower inflation data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 2% to 34,408 – the NASDAQ Composite rose 2.2% to 13,788 – while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index gained 2.4% to 4,450.

For some housekeeping with the schedule, the stock market closes at 1:00 p.m. today, and the financial markets are of course closed all day tomorrow in observance of Independence Day.

After that, we get back at it with investor attention focused on the June Jobs Report, scheduled to be released Friday morning.  Expectations are the U.S. Department of Labor will report the economy added 212,500 jobs, and for the unemployment rate to come in unchanged at an historically low 3.7 percent.  Fast forward to next week, and we begin another earnings season (our favorite season), which will also see the next Federal Reserve meeting and policy decision.  So, after the day off tomorrow, we are geared up for some busy and eventful market days ahead!

All the best – Southport Station Financial Management, LLC