Market’s Holiday Highs

Fresh news and strategies for traders. SPY Trader episode #1286. Welcome back to Spy Trader, your goto podcast for navigating the daily ups and downs of the market! I'm your host, Captain Bullish, and it's 12 pm on Friday, July 4th, 2025, Pacific Time. Happy Independence Day, everyone! The US stock market is closed today in observance of the holiday, but we've got plenty to recap from the shortened week and what to look forward to when trading resumes on Monday, July 7th.Let's dive into the key news items that shaped the market this past week. Leading up to the holiday, the US stock market ended with solid gains, with all major indices hitting new highs. The S&P 500 closed at 6,279.35 on Thursday, up 0.83%, and even touched a new alltime high of 6,284.65. It's up 1.7% for the week and nearly 7% yeartodate, hitting alltime highs on four of the past five trading days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.77% to 44,828.53, recording its third straight week of gains, and is just 0.4% shy of its December 4th record. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.02% to a new record high of 20,601.10. However, the Russell 2000, representing smallcap stocks, has shown mixed performance, currently trading 10% below its November 2021 peak and flat yeartodate, significantly underperforming the larger indices.Sectorwise, the market rally has broadened beyond just big tech. Industrial stocks led gains with a 15.4% surge in the first half of 2025, followed by Technology at 11.6%, and Utilities up 11.0%. On the flip side, Consumer Discretionary fell 2.3% and Energy declined 0.2%.Looking at recent news, we got a strongerthanexpected jobs report for June on July 3rd, showing the US economy added 147,000 jobs, beating predictions. The unemployment rate unexpectedly dipped to 4.1%, the lowest since February, which reinforced hopes of continued economic strength and eased recession concerns. However, the average hourly wages rose 0.2% from May, and 3.7% yearoveryear, coming in cooler than expected. Another significant factor is the looming