Day Traders Diary

7/2/24

The major averages rallied in the afternoon finishing in the green following comments from the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell this morning noting progress on inflation but reiterated that the central bank was not quite ready to cut rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 162 points. The S&P 500 rose 33 points while the Nasdaq Composite was up 149 points.

Tech has led the second quarter rally so far, but it is not coming from the AI chip stocks. Tesla led the charge up 9% following better-than-expected deliveries for the second quarter. The other big cap tech stocks like Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon were higher as well. Nvidia is quiet and modestly lower. The rest of the chip stocks were higher. CrowdStrike fell 2% on a downgrade.

Treasury yields were lower after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell cited progress on squashing stubborn inflation. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell nearly 3 basis points to 4.45%, while the yield on the 2-year Treasury note fell 3.5 basis points to trade at about 4.73%. Remarks at the European Central Bank Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal, Powell expressed satisfaction with the progress on inflation over the past year but said he wants to see more before being confident enough to start cutting interest rates.

Wall Street is coming off a slightly positive session to start the second half of the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.8% to close at a record. The S&P 500 was modestly higher while the Dow eked out a small gain.