Episode Details

Fresh news and strategies for traders. SPY Trader episode #1295. Good morning, Spy Traders! It's your favorite financial guru, Market Maverick Mike, here to break down the latest market moves. It's 6 am on Wednesday, July 9th, 2025, Pacific Time, and boy, do we have a lot to unpack from the last few hours. Let's dive right in and see what's shaping the markets. Looking at the overall US stock market, it's been a bit of a seesaw act. On July 8th, largecap equities were mostly down, with the S&P 500 slipping 0.1% and the Dow Jones falling 0.4%. NASDAQ stayed pretty flat. But then, on July 9th, we saw a nice rebound, with the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all posting solid gains of 0.77%, 1.02%, and 0.83% respectively. Over the past month, the S&P 500, or US500 index, has climbed 3.39%, and it's up over 10% compared to this time last year. When we peek at sector performance, it's a mixed bag. On July 9th, Energy, Materials, and Healthcare stocks were leading the charge. Energy had a strong run on July 8th, up 3%. On the flip side, sectors like Consumer Discretionary, Communication, and Technology have been lagging recently. Clean energy stocks were among the weakest performers on July 8th, following a new executive order aimed at limiting green energy tax credits. Financials also saw some declines. Now for the big news drivers: The renewed focus on trade policy is absolutely dominating the headlines. President Trump announced new reciprocal tariff rates and issued a stern warning that these would be strictly enforced by an August 1st deadline if trade agreements aren't reached. A major announcement included the intention to impose a whopping 50% duty on copper imports, which sent copper futures soaring nearly 10%. We also heard warnings of potential pharmaceutical tariffs as high as 200%. This aggressive stance is expected to crank up market volatility throughout the summer. Some domestic companies, like Byrna Technologies, are actually pretty happy about these tariffs, as they incentivize bringing manufacturing back home. In companyspecific news from July 8th, Fair Isaac, or FICO, shares plunged 8.9% after a federal housing official said lenders would be allowed to use the competing VantageScore credit scoring system. Conversely, Moderna, MRNA, shares surged 8.8% due to a lawsuit challenging COVID vaccine policies, and Intel, INTC, shares added 7.2% as the company announced further layoffs as part of its turnaround plan. Moving on to the broader economic picture: Inflation is still on our radar. The annual inflation rate in the US ticked up slightly to 2.4% in May 2025, from 2.3% in April, though it was still a bit below market expectations. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, held steady at 2.8% in May, a low not seen since 2021. However, here's the kicker: higher tariffs are widely expected to lead to a fresh wave of inflation, with core Personal Consumption Expenditures, or PCE, inflation potentially rising towards 3.1% by yearend. Keep an eye out for the next inflation update on July 15th. The US labor market remains surprisingly stable. The unemployment rate actually edged down to 4.1% in June 2025 from 4.2% in May, defying expectations of a slight increase. It's consistently stayed in a narrow range of 4.0% to 4.2% since May 2024. Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 147,000 in June. As for interest rates, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady in the range of 4.25% to 4.50% at its June 2025 meeting. They've kept rates here since cutting them by a total of 1% in the second half of 2024. While investors generally anticipate two quarterpoint rate cuts in 2025, the Fed's current 'wait and see' approach is largely due to the uncertainty around the inflationary impact of these new tariffs. We expect rates to remain stable at the next Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, meeting in midJuly 2025. Finally, on GDP, Real Gross Domestic Product in the US actually decreased at an