PPI Falls, Indices End Mixed On Thursday – $DIS $ENVX $INM $INVO $PHAT $XLE Rise!

Happy Thursday!

The macroeconomic schedule delivered the July PPI report confirming that it had fallen .5%, while the core PPI clocked in rising .2%. The Weekly initial jobless claims report also came in higher at 262k, while continuing claims came in at 1.428M. The Weekly EIA Natural Gas Inventories report showed a greater build of 44 bcf. All data seemed to confirm that the Fed is making head way with their moves to raise interest rates and cool the inflation numbers, but it is also believed that they will remain on course to raise rates again in September by another 75 basis points. The yield curve rose and remained inverted as the 10-yr rose 13 basis points to 2.89% & the 2-yr note moved up 2 basis points to close 3.19%. Two somber notes today came as the rate on 30-year fixed mortgages has now risen to 5.22% & oil prices also rose 2.7% to close at $94.33 today.

As a result, the major indices closed mixed. The S&P 500 closed at 4,207.07 (-.07%), while 6 of the 11 sectors closed in the red. The energy sector led the day on the strong shoulders of the aforementioned impressive move in oil prices. Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE) closed at $77.88, +3.44%. The Dow ended the session edging higher and closing at 33,336.67 (+.08%).  The growth oriented and tech heavy Nasdaq closed lower at 12,779.91 (-.58%). However, the small caps on the Russell 2000 moved higher to close at 1,975.26 (+.31%). The MicroCaps ticked higher evidenced by the iShares Micro-Cap ETF (IWC) that closed at $122.75, +.20%. The biotech stocks puled back almost as much as they gained yesterday as the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) closed at $90.78, -3.17%. The 52-wk range is $61.78 – $136.61. The iShares Biotechnology ETF (IBB) also closed at $131.29, -1.32%. The 52-range is $104.29 – $177.37. A decent measure of the markets volatility or the CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) closed up at at $20.20, +2.33% and traded within the range of $19.74 – $20.85. 

Around the money and precious metals’ tree, the U.S. Dollar Index closed at 105.24, +.14%, while Bitcoin (BTC) rose to $23,964.30, -1.55% over the last 24-hours at the time of this writing. Gold prices closed at $1,791/oz., -$4/oz. & silver closed at $20.31/oz., down $.28/oz. on the day. Two mining producers closed the day as follows: Hecla Mining Company (HL) closed at $4.52, -1.74% and First Majestic Silver Corp. (AG) closed at $8.13, -3.79%. On Aug. 8, First Majestic announced the release of its 2021 Sustainability Report summarizing the Company’s Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) performance. The Sustainability Report and the Company’s performance indicators follow the Global Reporting Initiative and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board metrics. The report is available for review under the Corporate Responsibility section of First Majestic’s website (www.firstmajestic.com). “In 2021, First Majestic achieved record production of 26.9 million silver equivalent ounces representing a 32% increase compared to the previous year. This record was in part due to our focus on responsible and sustainable mining integrated with our vision to become the world’s largest primary silver producer,” stated Keith Neumeyer, President and CEO. “I strongly believe that our efforts in 2021 demonstrated our commitment to sustainability and to improving lives and communities in our host regions while increasing shareholder value, as well as driving positive changes for society and delivering long-term benefits for all First Majestic stakeholders.”

Economic Reports

On Tuesday, the Q2 unit labor costs report  confirmed an acceleration to the tune of a 10.8% increase. It was slower than Q1’s 12.7% rate, but nevertheless significant and seems to back the Fed’s possible decision to raise rates again in September to combat inflation. However, it was also determined that a 2.5% drop in nonfarm business sector labor productivity occurred. The July NFIB Small Business Optimism report also confirmed a slightly higher moved to 89.9. 

On Wednesday, the CPI report confirmed that prices had come in lower in June than had been expected, at a 8.5% vs. a 9.1% rise, giving a slimmer of hope that the Fed may need to temper their current speed at which they are raising interest rates. The Weekly MBA Mortgage Applications Index report also confirmed a slight .2% rise & the June Wholesale Inventories report showed a 1.8% increase. 

On Thursday, the July PPI report confirmed that it had fallen .5%, while the core PPI clocked in rising .2%. The Weekly initial jobless claims report also came in higher at 262k, while continuing claims came in at 1.428M. The Weekly EIA Natural Gas Inventories report showed a greater build of 44 bcf.

Investing & Inspiration

1. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James

2. “Success – keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.” – Walter Scott

3. “If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.” – Tallulah Bankhead

4. “When one must, one can.” – Charlotte Whitton

5. “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” – Epictetus
6. “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” – Winston Churchill
7. “Hope is patience with the lamp lit.” – Tertullian
8. “A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.” – Francis of Assisi
9. “With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
10. “Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.” – Anne Frank

11. “I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.” – Albert Einstein

12. Hope is but the dream of those who wake.” – Matthew Prior

13. “The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” – Jean Paul
14. “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” – Confucius

15. “Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.” – George Bernard Shaw

16. “Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

17. “History is a vast early warning system.” – Norman Cousins 

18. “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” – John Dryden

19. “The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
20. “Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop
21. “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
22. “The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.” – Francesco Guicciardini

23. “Courage is knowing what not to fear.” – Plato

24. “Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break.” – Earl Wilson

25. “Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.” – James Thurber

26. “If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.” – Hal Borland

27. “We aim above the mark to hit the mark.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

28. “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” – Desmond Tutu

29. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

30. “Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.” – Elon Musk

31. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet.” – William Blake

32. “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” – Muhammad Ali

33. “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” – J. Paul Getty

34. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso

35. “Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.” – Samuel Smiles

    “The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.” – Carl von Clausewitz

36. “There are no shortcuts in evolution.” – Louis D. Brandeis

37. “I am fascinated by what is beautiful, strong, healthy, what is living. I seek harmony.” – Leni Riefenstahl
38. “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau
39. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius
40. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” – Aristotle Onassis
41. “Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” – George S. Patton
42. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
43. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson 
44. “It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.” – Aeschylus
45. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – Lao Tzu
46. “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” – Oprah Winfrey
47. “Anything simple always interests me.” – David Hockney
48. “He who angers you conquers you.” – Elizabeth Kenny
49. “Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.” – Victor Hugo
50. “The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” – Aldous Huxley
51. “View health as an investment, not an expense.” – John Quelch
52. “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” – Amelia Earhart
53. “Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.” – A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
54. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha
55. “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” – Edmund Burke
56. “You must do the things you think you cannot do.”- Eleanor Roosevelt
57. “Success is dependent on effort.” – Sophocles
58. “Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it.” – George Halas
59. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
60. “And when I breathed, my breath was lightning.” – Black Elk
61. “Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.” – Joseph Hall
62. “You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.” – Maya Angelou
63. “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.” – Clint Eastwood
64. “We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” – Ray Bradbury
65. “If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.” – Confucius
66. “I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.” – Robert H. Schuller
67. “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Desmond Tutu
68. “It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” – Thomas Sowell
69. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha”
70. Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” –  Boris Pasternak
71. “Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.” – Khalil Gibran 
72. “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” – Bruce Lee
73. “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
74. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” –  Colin Powell
75. “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mahatma Gandhi
76. “Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” – Allen Klein
77. “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” – W. Clement Stone
78. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
79. “In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.” – Albert Einstein
80. “Life is too short for long-term grudges.” – Elon Musk
81. “There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” – Henry Kissinger
82. “Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.” – Oliver Goldsmith
83. “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
84. “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.” – Omar N. Bradley
85. “Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.” – Rumi
86. “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” – Ernest Hemingway
87. “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
88. “Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.” – Nelson Mandela
89. “The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.” – John Maynard Keynes
90. “A successful society is characterized by a rising living standard for its population, increasing investment in factories and basic infrastructure, and the generation of additional surplus, which is invested in generating new discoveries in science and technology.” – Robert Trout
91. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” – Albert Einstein
92. “It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.” – Blaise Pascal
93. “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – W. Edwards Deming
94. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
95. “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” – Abraham Lincoln
96. “Without investment there will not be growth, and without growth there will not be employment.” – Muhtar Kent
97. “You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” – Abraham Lincoln
98. “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” – John F. Kennedy
99. “Delete the negative; accentuate the positive!” – Donna Karan
100. “It’s crazy how fast time flies and how things progress.” – Nathan Chen
101. “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” – Albert Einstein
102. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw
103. “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius
104. “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” – John C. Maxwell
105. “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.” – Helen Keller
106. “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin
107. “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” – Michelangelo
108. “Progress is man’s ability to complicate simplicity.” – Thor Heyerdahl
109. “I like to encourage people to realize that any action is a good action if it’s proactive and there is positive intent behind it.” – Michael J. Fox
110. “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” – Audrey Hepburn
111. “But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion.” – Bill Nye
112. “Bitcoin, in the short or even long term, may turn out be a good investment in the same way that anything that is rare can be considered valuable. Like baseball cards. Or a Picasso.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin
113. “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” – Charlie Chaplin
114. “No matter what you’re going through, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it may seem hard to get to it but you can do it and just keep working towards it and you’ll find the positive side of things.” – Demi Lovato
115. “Infrastructure investment in science is an investment in jobs, in health, in economic growth and environmental solutions.” – Oren Etzioni
116. “Educating our children and giving them the skills they need to compete in a global economy is a smart investment in our country’s future.” – Sheldon Whitehouse
117. “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” – Sun Tzu
118. “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
119. “Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.” – Franz Liszt
120. “The sofa is a really important investment for anybody, and I don’t mean financially. You need to find a really great sofa that can transition with you, and you can build from there.” – Jeremiah Brent
121. “There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.” – Orison Swett Marden
122. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie
123. “There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.” – Louis XIV
124. “In tennis, you strike a ball just after the rebound for the fastest return. It’s the same with investment.” – Masayoshi Son
125. “A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane.” – Jackie Kennedy
126. “The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.” – Bill Gates
127. “Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.” – Confucius, Chinese 
128. “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Edward Everett Hale
129. “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”– Albert Einstein
130. “Education is not only a ladder of opportunity, but it is also an investment in our future.” – Ed Markey
131. “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” – Samuel Johnson
132. “In my view, the biggest investment risk is not the volatility of prices, but whether you will suffer a permanent loss of capital. Not only is the mere drop in stock prices not risk, but it is an opportunity. Where else do you look for cheap stocks?” – Li Lu
133. “A successful society is characterized by a rising living standard for its population, increasing investment in factories and basic infrastructure, and the generation of additional surplus, which is invested in generating new discoveries in science and technology.” – Robert Trout
134. “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
135. “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” – Elie Wiesel
136. “Investing in women’s lives is an investment in sustainable development, in human rights, in future generations – and consequently in our own long-term national interests.” – Liya Kebede
137. “Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” – Mike Ditka
138. “No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.” – Jessica Savitch 
139. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”– Arthur Ashe
140. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
141. “The amount of work and the amount of both physical and emotional investment it takes to get to the top.” – Drew Bledsoe