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Tech, Real Estate Lead Nasdaq, S&P to New Highs

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Markets drifted downward in the last hour of trading this Monday, but fortunately for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, this wasn’t enough to keep both indexes from notching fresh new closing highs by the final bell. The S&P gained +0.43% and the Nasdaq a robust +0.90%, for their seventh day higher in the past eight sessions. The Dow was -0.16% on the day due to that afternoon drift, dragged lower by financials AmEx (AXP - Free Report) , JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) and Goldman Sachs (GS - Free Report) .

Tech stocks gained +1.09% on the day, and Real Estate, which took it on the chin for much of the past week of trading, bounced back +1.15%. Apple (AAPL - Free Report) earned 3% in the regular session while both Prologis (PLD - Free Report) and Equinix (EQIX - Free Report) gained 1.8% each. These stocks helped the S&P reach its 53rd record closing high in 2021, and the Nasdaq reaching its 32nd record closing high.

Pending Homes Sales fell for the second-straight month for the first time in the past year, -1.8% for July following an unrevised -1.9% for June. Home sales had broached the outer stratosphere this past spring, with a +51.7% growth rate in April. But supply chain disruptions based on lower inventories coming out of pandemic mode caused prices to spike, making the housing market too rich for many people’s blood.

Fed Chair Jay Powell believes this sort of inflation in the economy remains transitory; once supplies are normalized, costs are expected to cool. Assuming the potential homebuyer market has as much interest as it did a few months ago, we may see the housing market once again provide a strong engine for economic growth. Though we are heading into cooler months ahead, when searching for new homes to buy tends to cool off, as well.

Zoom Video (ZM - Free Report) shares have fallen almost -10% upon the release of its Q2 earnings report after Monday’s close, even as the company notched its ninth straight earnings beat since its IPO back in early 2019. Earnings of $1.36 per share topped the Zacks consensus by 20 cents, while revenues of $1.02 billion outpaced the $990.2 million our analysts had been expecting, +54% year over year.

The company said 2300 Zoom customers have spent $100K or more in the quarter, which indicates growth on the Enterprise side. This amounts to +131% growth from this time a year ago. However, lower-than-expected earnings guidance for Zoom’s Q3 looks to have caused the sell-off. Slowing growth looks like a danger sign to this company which arguably gained from the stay-at-home pandemic era than any other publicly traded equity.

Tomorrow we see Consumer Confidence and a new Chicago PMI print for August, as well as a Case-Shiller home price index for June. None of these metrics are expected to sway the markets much in either direction, especially with late-summer trading volumes seizing current market conditions. But two of the three major indexes notching new all-time closing highs? Not too shabby.

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