Santoli: June’s jobs report is too strong to feed recession fears, but key inflation data looms

A monthly jobs report that’s far too strong to feed recession fears — featuring wage growth that adds no further momentum to inflation worry — allows stocks to defer to the five-day pattern of morning dips and afternoon rally attempts. This comes after an historically bleak six months and rare back-to-back down-10% quarters, along with some stabilization in the macro indicators, a crack in oil prices and Treasury yields comfortably below their 2022 highs for now. The index remains in the ‘counter-trend bounce until proven otherwise’ zone, but another 3% will make things interesting. The 20%+ drop in the S & P 500 plus the slide in the price-earnings from 21x to 16x would seem to have built in some downside profit risk. . . .