Stocks Are Stuck As Turnover Explodes

This is an abridged version of our Daily Report.

Stuck exactly in the middle

The S&P ended its first half stuck exactly at the midpoint of its year-to-date high and low.

It’s more typical for stocks to be near the upper or lower end of their range by mid-year. Similar years led to weak returns over the next 1-2 months, but not beyond that.

Turnover trouble

Stocks are seeing a big jump in the dollar value of shares turned over. Among stocks in the S&P 500, the only times the dollar value of volume was this year was approaching the last two bull market peaks. Same for the Nasdaq 100 trust, QQQ.

This is a warning sign of speculative behavior in highly-priced stocks.

Now coffee is really hated

The Optimism Index on coffee has sunk to a lowly 15, a level that is rarely seen in any commodity. Over its history, the Backest Engine shows that coffee rallied over the next month 71% of the time.

Powering up

The 10-day Optimism Index on the utilities fund XLU is now the highest since early 2016.