Day Traders Diary

6/18/24

The major averages continued their climb to new record highs even in the face of weaker economic data.  

This morning, we saw retail sales for May come in at just 0.1% growth below the 0.2% forecast by economists polled by Dow Jones. Sales rose 2.3% on a year-over-year basis.

U.S. Treasury bond yields dropped on this news with the 10-year Treasury yield was down 3 basis points to 4.25%. The 2-year Treasury yield fell 4 points to 4.71%.

The weak economic data did not hurt the tech sector. Plenty of upgrades for tech including Nvidia with a $155 price target. Nvidia rose 3% to a new high overtaking Microsoft and Apple as the most valuable company in the US. A number of chips stocks were strong as well including Micron and Qualcomm up over 2%. AMD, Intel and Broadcom closed lower with AMD down 2%.

Outside the tech space, Cedar Fair had a good day up 7% after announcing the merger date of July 1^st with Six Flags. The combined company will operate under the name Six Flags Entertainment with the same ticker of "FUN." Six Flags will also issue a special dividend of $1.53 per share for investors.