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Fed-Induced Rally Impacts These Portfolio, Bullpen Names

After comments from Jerome Powell drove a notable market rally, we've got our eyes on these portfolio developments.

Bob Lang·Aug 1, 2024, 9:30 AM EDT

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That was quite the rally on Wednesday! It started up nearly 1% across the board (save for the small caps) and just mushroomed into a massive up session. At one point, the Nasdaq was up an astonishing 3%, a simply fantastic rally that could not have been predicted after Microsoft MSFT delivered soft earnings on Tuesday evening. But the market does things that make you go "hmm" most of the time.

Much of the rally later in the day (and then the retreat) was due to a Federal Reserve policy statement and press conference by Chair Jay Powell. He indicated that the committee is pleased with the progress made on inflation but they need to see more data to make sure prices are falling. They would like to cut rates, that is very apparent.  

The chairman did not say when that would be, but he did say that if the data were friendly, then a September cut is on the table. Beyond that timeline, he was silent, but he did say in June that rate cuts/hikes are a process, that one move is probably insignificant here. That tells us the process will likely be laid out over many months and the committee is content to move slow as inflation slow moves away.

Meta Platforms META delivered strong earnings and guidance last night that pleased Wall Street. They even raised their capital expenditures, which was a thorn in the last quarter reported in April. We have META in our bullpen. 

Also reporting strong earnings last night were Qualcomm QCOM and Arm Holdings ARM, which may help continue the strong semiconductor rally from Wednesday.

Oil prices surged after an assassination of a Hamas leader in Iran a couple of days ago. Crude jumped more than 6% on heavy volume while gold also surged to new all time highs. Volatility remains elevated for these two commodities. 

On tap tonight are earnings from TheStreet Pro names Amazon AMZN and Apple AAPL, which are likely to drive some of the market action over the next couple sessions.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long MSFT, QCOM, AMZN and AAPL.