Trade Wins Can’t Prevent Market Slip in Volatile Week

Trade Wins Can’t Prevent Market Slip in Volatile Week

The Major Markets fell last week after two consecutive positive weeks. Monday opened on a high note as news broke that the Trump administration had reached an agreement over the weekend with the EU on a trade deal ahead of the August first deadline.

The positive sentiment carried the S&P 500 to a new all-time closing high on Monday. However, selling on Tuesday caused the Market to slip from this level and failed to regain and retain that threshold at close for the remainder of the week.

The week was marked by the FOMC Meeting midweek which saw the Fed Funds rate hold at the 425 to 450 basis point level. While holding interest rates was widely expected, one aspect that was noteworthy was the fact that two Fed members dissented from the others’ choice to hold rates, instead voting to lower interest rates by 25 basis points. As many highlighted, this is the first time since 1993 that two governors of the central bank formally opposed the decision of the majority.

Major Markets		YTD as of 08/01/2025
	Nasdaq
	Dow Jones Industrial
	S&P 500
	MSCI World
	MSCI EM
	Russell 2000
	Bar US Agg Bnd

S&P Sectors

YTD as of 08/01/2025

Comm. Services

Cons. Discretionary

Cons. Staples

Energy

Financials

Health Care

Industrials

Info. Technology

Materials

Real Estate

Utilities

Agent/Broker Dealer Use Only

This decision took place ahead of Friday’s BLS employment Report which came in weaker than expected. The headline reading of only 73,000 new jobs coincided with downward revisions for the prior two months. Hours later, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This surprise action raised eyebrows across the financial news space. Shortly thereafter, the White House produced a statement at Whitehouse.gov in an effort to provide explanation and detailed the history of significant revisions to the BLS data in recent history.

Finally, the week ended not just with the BLS headline but with the realization that a number of countries had not reached new trade deals with the Trump administration and were therefore set to see significant increase in their tariff rates. Furthermore, there was no news of additional delays on the tariffs being enacted after months of negotiations following the April 2nd “Liberation Day” announcement.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/trump-announces-new-trade-deal-european-union-124119202

https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-07-30/fed-policy-decision-generates-most-governor-dissents-since-1993

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-orders-firing-bls-commissioner-weak-jobs-report-rcna222531

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/08/bls-has-lengthy-history-of-inaccuracies-incompetence

https://worldscorecard.com/world-facts-and-figures/us-tariffs-and-the-world/

High earner? Learn how a backdoor Roth IRA can help maximize your retirement savings—even if you face income limits.

The S&P 500® Index is a capitalization index of 500 stock-designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of stock representing all major industries. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-500

The Dow Jones Industrial Average® (The Dow®), is a price-weighted measure of 30 U.S. blue-chip companies. The index covers all industries except transportation and utilities. https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average

The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. Today the NASDAQ Composite includes over 2,500 companies, more than most other stock market indexes. Because it is so broad-based, the Composite is one of the most widely followed and quoted major market indexes. https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/Index/Overview/COMP

The MSCI World Index, which is part of The Modern Index Strategy, is a broad global equity benchmark that represents large and mid-cap equity performance across 23 developed markets countries. It covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country and MSCI World benchmark does not offer exposure to emerging markets.

The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index is designed to represent the performance of large- and mid-cap securities in 24 Emerging Markets countries of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As of December 2017, it had more than 830 constituents and covered approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country. https://www.msci.com/

The S&P GSCI Crude Oil index provides investors with a reliable and publicly available benchmark for investment performance in the crude oil market. https://us.spindices.com/indices

Companies in the S&P 500 Sector Indices are classified based on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®). https://us.spindices.com/indices

Weekly Market Commentary