P1 + P2 Combo Alert — A "new" Laggard Buy, Two Winners Banked, and a QQQ Roll
We opened the week after celebrating the 250th birthday of our beloved USA — with the market grinding relentlessly higher and the Dow printing a fresh record
Market Intelligence
Big picture: A dovish repricing after a soft June jobs print (+57K) has the tape rotating hard — the Dow printed a record while crowded AI-semis got sold, with metals surging and the dollar off 14-month highs. It’s a headline-driven, low-liquidity, post-holiday week with a Fed on hold and a tariff-letter clock ticking to Aug 1. Live scanner check (9:30 ET): SPY $748.32 · QQQ $721.66 · /MES 7,565 · GLD $380.63.
Volatility: Elevated-risk more than realized-high — a data-light, low-liquidity week that can amplify any surprise. The FOMC minutes (Wed Jul 8, 2pm ET) are the biggest scheduled vol event; the tariff-letter rollout is the key headline risk.
Rates & Fed: 10Y ~4.49%, 2s10s ~+35bp (no longer inverted). Fed on hold at 3.50–3.75% under Chair Warsh; CME FedWatch ~76% hold at Jul 28–29. Soft jobs quieted hike talk — the debate is hold-vs-hike, not hold-vs-cut. Fading hike odds are stabilizing the long bond — a tailwind for our bullish TLT stance.
Equities & Breadth: Dow +1.1% to a record 52,900; S&P 500 essentially flat; Nasdaq −0.8%. Leaders: Comm Services +2.4% (our Comcast aisle), Financials +2.2%. AI-semi selloff: Micron −5.5%, Intel −5.3%, AMD −4.3%. Clear rotation OUT of crowded AI-growth INTO value/financials/large-cap.
Cross-Asset: DXY ~101 (off 14-month highs after its worst week since April). GLD ~$380 rising, gold bid. TLT ~$85.5 stabilizing. HYG mid-range — no credit stress. WTI ~$68 soft. Classic dovish/soft-landing repricing: USD down, real-asset hedges up, credit calm.
Catalysts: FOMC minutes Wed Jul 8 (the week’s main event); no major CPI/PCE this week (June CPI next week, Jul 14). Q2 earnings kick off late week (DAL Fri Jul 10). SpaceX (SPCX) joins the Nasdaq-100 — index buying triggers after today’s close (~$4.3B from QQQ alone); we hold SPCX short puts in P1 & P2, so a supply-squeeze pop is possible.
Sentiment: Stretched — a record ~60% of S&P 500 names carry Buy ratings (Bilello), P/E ~26x, semis +237% over 14 months (past the dot-com-peak surge). Narrow, concentrated leadership leaves little room for positive surprises into earnings.
Trusted Voices: Liz Ann Sonders (Schwab) — bull market alive on earnings, but a “very narrow market”; core services inflation stuck above 3%, Fed “patient,” expects “more frequent bouts of volatility.” Charlie Bilello — record Buy-rating optimism, valuations rich. Danielle DiMartino Booth (QI Research) — warns the hold may be a policy error, flags negative payroll revisions and private-credit stress.
