If you were taking time off from the stock market, since it wasn’t doing much in the last week or so, you’re in for a nice surprise. July is considered a good month for stocks, and the first trading week of the month, albeit short, didn’t indicate otherwise. It may have been a short trading week, but a lot happened—ECB forum, Fed minutes, PMI data, a new UK Prime Minister, and the June jobs report—to help push the equity market out of its doldrums. The S&P 500 ($SPX) and Nasdaq Composite ($COMPQ) have broken out of their sideways move and show directional bias toward the upside. Precious metals, i.e. gold ($GOLD) and silver ($SILVER), are moving higher after a pullback. Crude oil prices are consolidating after rising for about a month. The US Dollar Index ($USD) has pulled back and is trading close to a support level. Looking at the…
