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Good morning. Stocks closed July with two green days in a row, but the rebound still has not been confirmed. This week brings the confirmation test, a heavy run of earnings, and a weekend reversal on Iran.
The Market Gauge
Friday closed out July on a second straight advance. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.00% to 25,373.85, the S&P 500 gained 0.70% to 7,489.72, and the Dow added 0.53% to 52,485.03. Underneath the green, two things did not cooperate. Bond yields kept climbing, with the 10-year Treasury finishing at 4.74%, an 18-month high, and the 30-year at 5.27%, the highest in 19 years. And small caps went the other way: the Russell 2000 fell on Friday and slipped back below its 50-day average line. Software was the week's genuine strength; chip stocks bounced hard on Thursday but remain badly damaged from the selling earlier in the week.
Beginner note: here is the concept this week is built around. When a falling market puts in a first up day, that starts what Investor's Business Daily calls a rally attempt. The attempt is not a trend. What turns it into one is a follow-through day: a decisively strong gain on heavier volume than the day before, arriving on the fourth day of the attempt or later. The delay is the point. It filters out the bounces that die in a week. Thursday was day one, Friday was day two, so today is day three, and the earliest a follow-through could arrive is tomorrow. Watching for it, rather than buying the first green candle, is one of the habits that separates patient traders from frustrated ones. Month 7 covers this properly.
On today's calendar
Palantir reports after the close. Analysts are looking for about $1.81 billion in revenue, which would be roughly 80% growth from a year ago. Worth reading with last week's lessons in hand, and see the radar note below.
Oil reacts to a weekend reversal. On Saturday night the President said he would hold off on major new strikes against Iran, citing requests from Iran and other countries in the region and what he described as the outline of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media disputed that an agreement exists. Separately, OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to raise production quotas again starting in September. Oil moved more than 6% in a single session last week on this story, so expect it to stay noisy.
The week ahead is heavy. SpaceX reports late Tuesday, its first results since June's IPO, with its first insider lockup expiration two days later. Advanced Micro Devices and Sandisk give a read on AI hardware demand, and Eli Lilly reports Wednesday, the one we asked you to practice on.
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On the radar: Palantir
$PLTR ( ▲ 1.72% ) builds data-analysis software for governments and large companies, the kind used to pull scattered records into one place and find patterns in them. It reports tonight, and it is on the radar because of a tension worth sitting with. Analysts expect revenue growth near 80% from a year ago. That would clear the 25% earnings bar from Thursday's lesson many times over. And yet the stock closed Friday at $123.06, up 0.65%, roughly 41% below its 52-week high of $207.52. Investor's Business Daily, running through this week's reporters, singled Palantir out as the one name in the group that is not close to a buy area.
Why it is worth watching: this is last week's argument in a single stock. Saturday's recap said the C is a pre-screen, not an entry signal, and Friday's radar made the same point from the other side, where Quanta had a superb report and still ran into resistance. Palantir shows the sharper version: growth alone, however spectacular, does not repair a chart that is 41% off its high. Tonight also gives you a free repetition of Friday's lesson. Before you read a single headline about the report, open the release and find the five numbers yourself. You have a second chance at the same exercise on Wednesday with Eli Lilly.
ONE FOR THE ROAD
A company grows revenue 80% in a year and its stock is still 41% below its high. In one sentence, what does that combination tell you that the growth rate alone does not? Reply with your answer.
Educational content only. Not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results. Read the full financial disclosure.