The Great Rotation Continues

If you own Apple (AAPL) you’re in big trouble.

Well, maybe.

The Great Rotation continues.

The leading technology companies are still trading poorly. They may have another 5% to the downside. But it’s too late to sell them short.

It all sets up the sideways “time” correction that I have been predicting for the summer.

And what does best in this go nowhere, irritating, hair-tearing environment?

The “Iron Condors” I have been setting up, which are most profitable when stocks don’t go up too much, or down too much.

That’s why July is looking like a blockbuster +5%, or better month for avid followers of my Trade Alert service.

However, if you are a long-term investor, don’t worry.

Technology is not dead, it is just resting. The current puke out could be over as early as August.

The June Nonfarm Payroll Report certainly puts a floor under the bullish argument.

Coming in at robust 222,000, the data puts an end to a two-month downtrend in new job formation.

The headline Unemployment Rate hovered just above a decade low at 4.4%.

April and May were revised up +47,000. It all brings job gains for 2017 up to a respectable +189,000 a month.

Who were the biggest job creators of the month?

Local Government, which hired +35,000 in response to local population pressures.

Health Care picked up +37,000. As long as Obamacare remains in place, which could be forever, this sector will remain a leading job creator.

Professional and Business Services picked up +35,000, Restaurants and Food Services +29,000, and Construction +16,000.

The U-6 structural long-term “discouraged worker” unemployment rate rose for the first time in a long time from, 8.4% to 8.6%.

The big story of the week was the spike in global interest rates.

The US ten-year Treasury bond yield rocketed from 2.12% all the way up to 2.39%. But German bunds jumped from 0.25% to 0.52%, a doubling.

Only Japanese yields are hanging in at 0.08%, thanks to massive government support.

At last, investors are realizing that the winding down of global quantitative easing and the coming Fed tightening are about to pee on their parade.

The free put option on risk is about to become extinct. Maybe that’s what the Volatility Index (VIX) is telling us with a slow grind up.

I know some of you don’t get out much.

So here is a link to the TV coverage of the Hamburg G-20 meeting from one of America’s allies, Australian Broadcasting, one of my old freelance jobs during the 1970’s (click here).

I’ll leave it at that.

The major market driver for the coming week will be the first of the Q2 earnings reports.

On Monday, July 17 at 10:00 AM EST, we will see the Labor Market Conditions Index, a composite of 19 different indicators. However, we already know that the job market is red hot.

On Tuesday, July 11 at 10:00 AM EST we get another employment indicator with the JOLTS Report.

On Wednesday, July 12, at 2:00 PM EST Federal Reserve Governor Janet Yellen begins two days of testimony in front of congress, usually causing the markets to freeze up. I always listen intently, taking this as my monthly free economics lesson.

At 10:30 AM EST the weekly EIA Petroleum Status Report is out, probably with more awful news. This could be the low of the week for oil traders.

Thursday, July 13 at 8:30 AM we learn the Weekly Jobless Claims. Last week’s number saw a bearish slight tick up.

On Friday, July 14 is Bastille Day in France, where markets will be closed. Good luck finding fresh croissants and hot café au lait anywhere in Paris. Both volume and volatility should drag in the US as a result.

The big bank earnings will be the important factor of the day, including Citibank (C), JP Morgan (JPM), and Wells Fargo (WFC).

 At 10:00 AM EST we receive a Consumer Price Index for June. Will inflation stay muted? June Industrial Production follows at 9:15 AM.

Wrapping up the week at 1:00 PM is the Baker-Hughes Rig Count, which has been up for most of the last year, boding ill for oil prices. Last week saw a doubling of year earlier rig numbers, and over a year of rises.

As for me, I will be cleaning the sand out of everything I own after a week on the beach in Santa Barbara, CA. On the way home I saw new apartment construction everywhere I looked.

Boy, it’s getting crowded in the Golden State!

Driving through the Salinas Valley, the land of John Steinbeck and East of Eden, it hit 108 degrees, a new all time record.

Tell me global warming isn’t happening here. Grass fires were everywhere.

Dumping of the Paris Accord is definitely going to come back to bite us.

Good luck and good trading!

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