CURRENCIES

 Market summary:

• The Australian Dollar was slightly lower on Monday but remains near its 2024 peak due to solid and enduring monetary policy support.
• Unlike most major central banks cutting rates, the Reserve Bank of Australia is likely to maintain or even increase rates due to high inflation.
• May’s inflation numbers showed a surprising rise in consumer prices, reaching a six-month high above 4%.
• Even if rates stay unchanged through year-end, Australian yields and the Dollar remain attractive.

 Economic data:

• Monday: Sparse but notable data with a decline in home loans and investment lending for homes in May.
• Tuesday: Westpac’s monthly consumer confidence snapshot; June’s data showed slight improvement in consumer sentiment.

 Upcoming Events:

• Focus shifts to the US for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s Congressional testimony.

 Technical analysis:

• The Aussie has surpassed its previous range top in the last three sessions but remains unstable.
• Bulls pushed through key resistance at the first Fibonacci retracement of AUD/USD’s rise (December 28, 2023, peak to October 25, low).
• Near-term support is at 0.67419; if this fails, a drop below 0.67133 into the previous range is likely.
• Further retracement support at 0.65704 appears solid.
• Long-term uptrends since mid-April remain intact, with little expectation of significant declines while fundamentals are supportive.

STOCK MARKET

Influence of top stocks:

• A small group of high-performing stocks, including “Magnificent Seven” tech names like Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), and Tesla (TSLA), heavily influence market activity.
• The top 10 stocks contributed 75% of the index’s year-to-date returns.
• Nvidia (NVDA) alone accounted for nearly one-third of the S&P 500’s gains by late June.

Focus on quality at a reasonable price:

• Kantrowitz recommends prioritizing companies that outperform peers in earnings growth but are not the most expensive.
• He advises sacrificing some growth for quality to find reasonably priced names.
• There are 50 S&P 500 names that have beaten the index this year, not solely reliant on AI or tech.

Diverse performance:

• Large-cap and small-cap stocks are viewed differently due to their varying performances.
• Despite the S&P 500 reaching all-time highs in Q2, the average stock’s value declined.
• Year to date, the S&P 500 is up nearly 17%.

Industry shift:

• Multiple strategists raised their S&P 500 targets earlier this year due to a strong rally.
• It’s becoming challenging to keep up with the market trends, prompting more firms to reconsider their focus on the index.

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