The Traderszone Network

The most highly traded ETFs have struggled the past month. SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) has held up best and is still within 1% of its all-time high. PowerShares QQQ (QQQ) is within 3% of its 52-week high. Small-cap iShares Russell 2000 (IWM) has fallen 6% below its all-time high. Two resurgent Internet technology megacap stocks drove SPY’s recent performance. Search giant Google (GOOGL) vaulted 27% higher in the past three months. It fell 5% in 2014. No.

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Large-cap stock mutual funds and the S&P 500 have traced very similar paths in the past 10 years, and neither as lucrative as those of small- and midcap mutual funds. But large caps are flexing their muscles this year. The average large-cap mutual fund, seeded with a $10,000 investment on June 30, 2005, would have brought in $21,765 for investors as of Aug. 17 this year, a bit behind the $21,844 for the S&P 500, according to Morningstar Inc.

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From the Slope of Hope: On Tuesday morning, WalMart reportedly a 15% drop in profits year-over-year and warned they would be dropping estimates for forthcoming periods. I’ve placed countless thousands of trades in my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever traded a single share of WalMart. In spite of this, I decided to dust off the WMT chart and take a look at what was going on.

Take a look at this long-term chart of the company below (click for a larger image):

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Australia – Westpac / Melbourne Institute (MI) Leading Index for July
 Flat again at 0.0% change m/m … at more decimal points it comes in at +0.03%

If you like JPMorgan, you should love its warrants.

Adam has posted up a preview or two of the FOMC July meeting Minutes due on Wednesday (at 1800GMT)
Bloomberg have their “what to look for” guide:
A signal from the discussion on whether or not there was a consensus among policy makers that September is the right time for the first interest-rate increase since 2006
(uhhh …. yeah …. that would be great. Anyway … back to it …. )

Great bank stocks don’t come cheap.