It’s been a fun couple of days in the market since the Fourth of July, despite the tariffs with China becoming real. Investors who stayed on the sidelines really missed out, as the major indices each registered solid gains for the week.

The NASDAQ led the way upward with an advance of 2.4%, which recovered last week’s loss of the same amount. The S&P’s 1.5% advance more than made up for last week’s deficit of 1.3%. The Dow is getting hit harder than its counterparts with all this trade turmoil so it couldn’t fully recover from last week’s 1.3% slide, but it still advanced 0.8% over the last four days.

The big news today was the Government Employment Situation report, which stated that the economy added 213,000 jobs last month. The result beat expectations at around 200,000. The number goes a long way in assuaging fears that the economy’s fundamentals are being hurt by concerns of a trade war.

Speaking of trade, the $34 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese imports were officially imposed today, as were China’s promised retaliatory tariffs. Ironically, after weeks of hand-wringing about this issue, the market just shrugged it off on the first official day to focus more on the jobs number.

In the end, the NASDAQ enjoyed a second straight session with a 1%+ gain; it was up 1.34% (or nearly 102 points) on Friday to 7688.4. The S&P increased 0.85% to 2759.8 and the Dow advanced 0.41% to 24,456.5.

Of course, the indices won’t hold up as well if this trade war continues for too long or if it escalates. 

"Equities were bid across the board as the post-holiday bounce continued. Not even a late night swap of tariffs between the US and China could put a damper in things. It didn’t matter where you looked today, stocks were in “Go-mode” and that’s a good thing," said Dave Bartosiak.

Dave was the most active editor to close out the week, as he added to two of his portfolios. Blockchain Innovators picked up a semiconductor giant that gets a lot of business from the crypto space, while Momentum Trader added a tech name to capitalize on the NASDAQ’s uptrend. Also, TAZR cashed in part of a position for a double-digit return. Read more below:

Today's Portfolio Highlights:

Blockchain Innovators: Of all the semiconductor manufacturers, the one most closely tied to the crypto space is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The company gets a big chunk of their business from mining crypto. Dave mentioned a valuation metric yesterday that says Bitcoin (BITCOMP) is trading under mining costs, which usually portends a rally to new highs in short order. Therefore, the editor bought AMD on Friday so the portfolio can be on board for the next leg higher.

TAZR Trader: The market has been on a roll since coming back from the Independence Day holiday, especially the NASDAQ. The tech-heavy index gained more than 1% in each of the past two sessions. Kevin decided to sell about half of the NASDAQ 100 3X Bull ETF (TQQQ) position for a profit of 25.5%. The editor will be watching closely to see if the S&P can get through 2800 this month, but will still be raising some cash just in case. Read the complete commentary for more.

Momentum Trader: With the NASDAQ gaining more than 2% in two days and the market getting back some of its risk appetite, Dave went to the computer software industry for his promised pick on Friday. American Software (AMSWA) is an enterprise and business software company that has been enjoying rising earnings estimates for the current quarter and year. Best of all though, the stock has pulled back and opened up a great opportunity. The editor added AMSWA with a 12.5% allocation. Read the full write-up for more.