1. The stock market is the new Las Vegas.
Robinhood (HOOD) was the most highly anticipated IPO of the year. The stock came public last week and today it surged as high as $85.00 a share. Please remember, the stock opened up at $38.00 last Thursday. This is now on the Reddit boards and has become the latest meme stock. Stay away if you are not a gambler as the stock has already dipped back to $64.00 a share. 

2. ADP job report was released earlier today. The number was a big miss with 330,000 jobs  added to the private-sector payrolls in July. The expectation was for 650,000 new jobs. Believe it or not, a weak number is actually bullish for the market because it gives the Fed a reason to keep the easy money policies in place. This Friday we will hear the non-farm payroll report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

3. Bitcoin hitting resistance at 40k. 41.4 was resistance. Let’s see what happens in the next few days. Beware of $34.4k, if it closes below at any point

4. Gold/Silver up slightly, started the day very strong and has now faded. It was up $18, but now up $1. Silver down very slightly. They’ve been very choppy since June, but they’re hanging in there. Let’s see where Friday.

1. The Senate is finalizing the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. This could be voted on later this week. This bill still has to get through the House of Representatives, so it could be a while before anything final takes place. Either way, the markets love debt and easy money. 

2. The semiconductors ($SMH) stocks are strong again today. As long as this industry group holds up there is usually nothing wrong. When this important sector turns down then there are usually big problems ahead for tech and often the broader markets. This is something that I use as a stock market barometer. 

3. Bitcoin if you can make money on cryptos, go for it, Nick says its an asset class, so have at it. It perfectly coincided with the Coinbase IPO. It’s still going lower. Down 4% today. Still above the June bottom of $28,000. All central banks are going digital. You’re not going to get rid of the middleman. The government will know

4. Gold/Silver gold up $1.25 on futures. Silver is flat. Quiet day for PM. Miners are flat as well.

1. Amazon Selloff weighs on markets.
Amazon (AMZN) is falling lower by 7.5% today after reporting earnings that failed to impress Wall Street. As you know, this is one of the mega-cap tech stocks and it carries a lot of weight in the tech heavy NASDAQ Composite. In fact, outside of Alphabet (GOOG) all of the leading mega cap tech stocks that  reported ended lower.

2. The bright spot for Tech stocks was the semiconductors (SMH, SOX) 
The leading semiconductor stocks ended the week very strong. This is a positive for the sector and for technology as a whole. Every trader and investor should use the semiconductor sector as a stock market barometer. Right now, they are acting strong. 

3. Bitcoin we’re hitting key resistance again. Don’t be taken in on its recent advance. Might be a little further advance, beware

4. Gold/silver yesterday gold had an impressive day. It came down today and it still needs to do some work before it will advance. Gold miners still not leading.

1. Its Fed Day
The 2-day FOMC meeting concludes today. The central bank will make their interest rate policy decision at 2 pm ET. The truth be told, the Fed is not expected to do anything. The verbiage could move markets, but I do not see them taking any new actions. Right now, they are buying $120 billion a month of mortgage backed securities (MBS) and U.S. Treasuries. As we all know, the Fed is the leading catalyst for the market rally. Any type of taper could crash the market. No news is good news.

2. Earnings from Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOG) were released last night. These mega cap tech names are giving a boost to the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite today. Facebook (FB) is the next mega cap tech stock  to report earnings tonight after the close. Perhaps the news has already been discounted. Tesla earnings came out yesterday. They were better than expected. Don’t buy on earnings. Let them settle out for a few days and then see if there’s an opportuntity.

3. Bitcoin is almost at 40k, even 41k and is at resistance and never went above. Musk is the Bitcoin Moses. Trouble brewing?

4. Gold/Silver in a downward consolidation, sideways pattern. Gold miners are under pressure. Not a good opportunity to buy. The miners aren’t leading the physical.

1. Bitcoin gets a boost.
The talk of the town is that Amazon (AMZN) will accept Bitcoin later this year. I find that difficult to believe since Bitcoin is so volatile, but this is an upside down world right now so anything is possible. Bitcoin is now trading at the higher end of the bearish range on the daily chart.Could hit 41.4k. Nothing goes down in a straight line and nothing goes up that way either. The writing is on the wall. There’s a crypto in your future, like it or not.

2. This is a big week for markets as the mega cap tech stocks are scheduled to report. Earnings from $AAPL, $GOOG, $MSFT, $AMZN & $FB will be released throughout the week. These stocks are expected to have blockbuster numbers, but how much is already baked in the cake?

3. Wednesday is another important FOMC meeting.
 Then we have an important Fed meeting (FOMC) concluding on Wednesday. Fed Chairman Jay Powell has the pressure on him to keep the rally going. I'm not sure what they can say at this point. The stock market really just cares about the easy money and the Fed has said that it will continue in the near term future.  #stockmarkets

4. Job numbers looking better 419k weekly claims, up from an expected 350k. Previous week 368k. Continuing claims are down. Red states outperforming.

5. Gold/silver still week, gold bouncing off $1800. Miners starting to move.

1. Is the 'Friday Effect" back? 
This is where the markets seem to always rally on a Friday. This did not play out last week, but it seems that the 'Friday Effect' has not worked on the past two monthly options expirations (June & July options expiration). It looks to be in gear today.

2. Earnings season is underway. 
Next week we get the big mega cap tech stocks reporting. Almost every trader in the world is waiting for this to happen. Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Facebook (FB) & Amazon (AMZN) all report next week. 

3. Robinhood IPO
Robinhood is the most highly anticipated IPO of the year. The company is expected to come public late next week. The ticker symbol for the stock will be HOOD.

4. Bitcoin
Continued pattern of weakness. Hasn’t broken down yet.

5. Gold/Silver
Still getting slammed. Down by $8, under 1800. It’s been weak since June expiration. Miners are lagging metal, always a bad sign.

1. Markets are pausing today, but have recovered from the Monday sell-off. Every trader should be in extreme caution mode. The Russell 2000 has been very weak. It was about to break down and then came back like Lazarus.

2. More money rotation today. We continue in a hot potato market. This means that money keeps going from one area to another area. From energy to tech to leisure. On any given day one industry is hot and another is down. Things may look good on the surface, but when you take a peak under the hood, there’s a darker story.

3. Bitcoin on Tuesday traded below 30k. Not it’s back over 32k. Thank you Elon and Jack. Musk likes Ethereum. It’s below all its moving averages. Has taken out its pivot low. Slingshot down to 21k. Afterwards it’s 6k.

4. Gold/Silver bad action in the metals. Miners have been lagging the gold price. More downside to come. Ultimately another tremendous buying opportunity.

1. Major stock market sell off taking place. You will hear the Delta variant is the catalyst, but there has been deterioration going on for the past month or so. Spydrs sold off 147 million shares. Today was straight selling. They held the 50 day moving average. Ugly sell off on very high volume. Volume was high where there was leadership, ie, the financials and energy. The leaders got slammed. The Fed will try something to stop the market from going into fear mode. It was a down day with velocity.

Lower bond yields are now bad for the stock market. If you remember they used to be good for the market, you can now see how quickly the correlations change. Today, yields on the 10-year note are down over 10 basis points to 1.18%. Problems in the banking sector?

2. Oil is down 5% this morning. That has been an area that has shown signs of topping out lately. Full disclosure: I'm short oil via the SCO. There should be much more downside to follow. Low $20,000

3. Bitcoin continues its bearish consolidation period. No real strength. It hasn’t broken down, yet. It could very well crash to $6000. There’s a lot weak hands holding cryptos.

4. Gold/Silver Silver was slammed down to $25. Gold hung in. Gold miners on the GDX were down 2%.

1. Fed Chairman Jay Powell testified in front of a House Congressional Panel on Capitol Hill. Pedal to the metal.
He said that he will keep his $120 billion a month in asset purchases going for now. Inflation is temporary (transitory). That definitely helped the precious metals. What’s the difference between transitory and temporary inflation.

2. Options expiration is this Friday. This was a mixed session by the close in the major stock indexes. There were lots of stocks that came under pressure, but this is typical during an options expiration trading week. I call this the real shark week. Yields dropped again, hooray!

3. Market leadership is very thin right now. It appears that the mega-cap tech stocks are doing the best right now. We shall see if money continues to rotate out of one area and into another. 

4. Gold/Silver acted well off the news, but another day where we’re sitting around 1828. Right now they’ve made a major comeback.

5. Bitcoin was positive, not a big up day, around 32,700. The pattern is more and more bearish.