Stocks Descend from Recent Peaks
The Weekly Update
Week of July 22, 2019
By Christopher T. Much, CFP®, AIF®
The Week on Wall Street
Stock benchmarks retreated during the first week of the second-quarter earnings season. As some big names shared quarterly results, investors seemed more interested in what might happen at the Federal Reserve’s upcoming policy meeting.
For the week, the S&P 500 declined 1.23%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.65%, and the Nasdaq Composite, 1.18%. International stocks, measured by the week-over-week performance of the MSCI EAFE index, were down 0.79%.
Households Bought More Last Month
Retail sales were up 0.4% in June, according to the Department of Commerce. Consumer purchases account for more than two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product, and data like this may rebut some assertions that the economy is losing steam.
Traders still expect the Federal Reserve to make a rate cut at the end of this month, even with low unemployment, solid consumer spending, …