Stock Market update: Stock Market Blog -Jul 15th

We got a nice rally on Friday after JPM and WFC reported earnings. WMT hit another all time high! Oil and Gold also rallied, along with Bonds. Next week we get a full slew of earnings reports, including BAC, C, GOOG, INTC, and GE. Visa, MasterCard, and other banks agreed to a $7.5 billion settlement with retailers for overcharging them!

Another Futures broker was shut down this week (PFG Best) after it was discovered that they were missing $200 million of customer money. Another California city declared bankruptcy this week (San Bernadino). PCX also filed for bankruptcy (a coal company).

New all time highs: AMT, CCI, CL, KMB , LQD , VTR, WMT, XLP, XLV
All time lows: ANR, SVU, VXX

Pops:
Drops: AMD, CMI, DF, HGG, LXK, MAKO, QCOR, SVU

Next week: Economic reports
Options expiration on Friday!! GOOG earnings on Thursday.

Earnings reports:
Mon: C,
Tue: GS, JNJ, INTC, KO, YHOO
Wed: AXP, BAC, YUM
Thu: GOOG, MSFT
Fri: GE

Market Commentary

Looks like we've resumed the up-channel after Friday's rally (chart above). If we don't get any earnings surprises, we will probably see some more up-side, especially with Options expiration coming up on Friday -a lot of people are short this market and will get squeezed. See sample trade on GOOG earnings using options (OptionsMakeSense).

Did the US Dollar double top this week?

If it did, we could see stocks rally some more!

This week's charts:
Weekly Unemployment claims
S&P 500 -back in rally mode for now
OptionsMakeSense -trade with low cost and high probabilities

Commodities/Futures (charts):
Oil rallied, closing near $87.10
Natural Gas was mostly unchanged, closing near $2.87
Gold rallied, closing near $1592
The 30 year Bond rallied, closing near $151.19
The US Dollar was mostly unchanged, closing near 83.48
Grains rallied again!