Index Performance – As of 1:00 PM, 7/2/20

S&P 500 Index: 2.0%

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 0.9 %

Nasdaq Composite: 2.4 %

Equities

US equities delivered very strong gains during the shortened trading week. Like their larger counterparts, indexes representing both the small and mid-cap space were higher.

All major sectors were in the green this week; Real estate, consumer discretionary, and communication services were the top performers. Large cap growth outperformed value by more than 1% this week.

The S&P 500 Index gained 20% in the second quarter of 2020 for its best

We check in again today on some of the real-time economic data that LPL Research is monitoring to provide valuable insights into the current state of the US economy, even as traditional economic data is too slow to pick up the changes that are occurring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Much of the high-frequency data is now showing a pause in the steady improvement we had seen since the end of March amid increasing public concern over the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the US. In the last two weeks, the number of daily new US COVID-19 cases has doubled to over 40,000, largely due to surges in many southern and western sta

What a quarter the second quarter was, with the S&P 500 Index adding 20.0%, for the best quarter since 1998 and the best second quarter since 1938. Of course, stocks fell 20% in the first quarter, so what we really have is a bad case of whiplash in 2020 thus far.

“A 20% quarterly gain is quite rare, but the catch is previous large quarterly gains have actually led to continued strength,” according to LPL Financial Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “In fact, a quarter later stocks have been higher the past 8 times after gaining at least 15% during the previous quarter.”

As the LPL Char

Nearly four months ago, in late February, the 10-year Treasury yield broke to its lowest level ever, undercutting the record lows from 2016 of 1.32%. Over the following two weeks, as fears surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic intensified, interest rates experienced an unprecedented collapse, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note eventually trading as low as 0.31% on March 9 (Bloomberg). However, consumers who rushed to refinance loans in mid-March may have been surprised to find that mortgage rates, which typically track the path of longer-term Treasury rates, actually spiked significantly during that time.

So what happened? W