Stocks closed mostly higher on Wednesday, with the S&P and Nasdaq making another new all-time high and close in the process.

Those two indexes wasted no time climbing to new records in Wednesday's shortened pre-holiday trading session.

There was no let-up in economic reports on Wednesday either.

The PMI Manufacturing report showed the Composite Index coming in at 54.8 vs. last month's 54.5. The Services Index rose to 55.3 vs. last month's 54.8.

The ISM Services Index, however, fell to 48.8 vs. last month's 53.8 and the consensus for 53.0.

Factory Orders were off -0.5% m/m vs. last month's 0.4% pace and estimates for 0.2%.

The International Trade in Goods and Services report showed the deficit increasing to -$75.1 billion vs. last month's -$74.5B, but coming in under expectations for -$76.0B.

And MBA Mortgage Applications fell -2.6% w/w with purchases down -3.3% and refi's down -1.5%.

We also got the FOMC Minutes from last month's Fed meeting. No surprises there as it reiterated what they already told us, and what Fed Chair Jerome Powell said just the other day, which is inflation is back on a disinflationary path, but that they will need to see more data to reach the level of confidence needed before they cut rates. But based on the progress made so far, and what their outlook is, they still expect one rate cut (presumably by 25 basis points) by year's end.

In addition, Weekly Jobless Claims rose 4,000 to 238K vs. views for 233K.
The Challenger Job-Cut Report shrank to 48,786 announced layoffs vs. last month's 63,816.

And the ADP Employment Report came in at 150,000 new private payroll jobs vs. last month's upwardly revised 157,000 (from 152,000) and estimates for 161,000.

But the jobs report everybody is really waiting for is this morning's Employment Situation report. The consensus is calling for 189,000 new jobs (160,000 from the private sector and 29,000 from the public), with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.0%. The participation rate is expected to increase to 62.6% from last month's 62.5%. And average hourly earnings are expected to be up 0.3% m/m vs. last month's 0.4% pace, while the y/y change is expected to come in at 3.9% vs. last month's 4.1%.

Recent Fed statements suggest they'd like to see both inflation easing, and evidence that the labor market is cooling before giving the green light on rate cuts.

In fact, just last month, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, despite seeing several reports showing that inflation is heading back down, said "in the absence of a significant weakening in the labor market, I need to see several more months of good inflation data before I would be comfortable supporting an easing in the stance of monetary policy."

So all eyes will be on this morning's jobs report.

The big three indexes are all on pace to close up for the week. If so, that'll make it 1 up week in a row for the Dow, 1 up week in a row for the S&P (and the 4th up week out of 5), and 5 up weeks in a row for the Nasdaq.

And it looks like there's a lot more upside to go.

Especially after all of the indexes finished in the green for the first half of the year, since that typically means more gains to follow in the second half.

Not to mention that stocks typically perform well in Presidential election years.

So make sure you're taking full advantage of it.

Best,