Another volatile day today to close out July. With the DOW already having made another new high today, the NASDAQ and S&P 500 continue to run into pressure - even though they both opened higher on the open this morning. However, the S&P 500 is still managing to maintain its recent series of higher lows over the last few days, so it's possible it too could rally back to another new high over the next few days. Small caps have also run into significant pressure over the last five trading days now, which honestly doesn't add to the markets' confidence level right now, but we'll see if they can get things turned around, along with the NASDAQ over the next few days. The Russell 2000 here has pretty much given back about half of its gains from earlier this month, so if it's going to add to the markets long-term strength, it's probably going to need to get itself turned around ASAP. Small caps do tend to lead big market rallies - not always but it is a historical theme. The fact that small caps continue to somewhat lag these days could be a newly developing theme, however, when risk is on, small caps do see strength. And that's precisely what these markets need right now - a little risk on mentality. As for all of our featured stocks right now, nothing too far out of the norm - except maybe AK Steel Holding Corporation's (NYSE: AKS) reversal from what appeared to be the possibility of a breakout just four days ago. Steel stocks in general have been beat up over the last few days after making some big moves earlier in the month. That's the way the markets work though - they go up and they go down, but in the end the fundamentals will always win. As a matter of fact, if S&P 500 earnings projections continue to ring true, if stocks do end up deciding to take a much bigger breather soon, it may well end up being an excellent buying opportunity. FACTSET provides some pretty good large cap fundamental data, so I did some digging and found this PDF they released just last week: https://insight.factset.com/hubfs/Resources%20Section/Research%20Desk/Earnings%20Insight/EarningsInsight_072817.pdf. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these two below paint a pretty rosy landscape for corporate America going forward. The first set of data here covers quarterly earnings and a look at forward P/E's for the S&P 500 so far for the recent quarter. The second image shows you just how prolific recent revenue growth has been for big corporate America. This is pretty much what we can all attribute the markets' recent strength to, because although current economic conditions don't seem to suggest all that much growth, you can see corporate America isn't having any problems at all. As a matter of fact, the fundamentals these days appear to be unprecedented. So there you have it - all the fundamental reasoning to support just why these markets continue to do what they do.