Stocks closed July down 8.77% for the year. That is even lower than the 6.9% accumulated loss as at the end of June. However, with stocks having been down as much as 10% earlier this month, the little rally we experienced to close the month was welcome.

As can be seen below, the performance of equities in July was atrocious. High yields on fixed income and industry-specific issues continue to hamper the performance of stocks. In the absence of currently unforeseeable mitigating factors, stocks are likely to end the year in the negative territory.