Market Drama

Welcome to this week’s Market Drama!

• The S&P 500 was up 2.7%.
• The Russell 1000 growth was up 4%.
• MSCI E.M. Index, which measures emerging market stocks, was up 4%.
• The big headline number was CPI for December, which came in at 6.5% year-over-year growth. Core CPI was 5.7%.
• When it comes to the inflation numbers, the core service number came in at a firm 0.5% month-over-month growth. 
• If you look at goods inflation and service inflation numbers, you’ll see that goods inflation is coming down significantly, but service inflation remains fairly sticky, mainly because the second one is more tied to the labor market. 
• The ratio of job openings to job seekers remains at near-all-time highs.

Looking at this week:

• December headline retail sales number comes out. It’s expected to decline 0.5% month-over-month. 
  • It is important since 68% percent of the GDP in the U.S. is driven by the consumer buying things.

Stay tuned for next week.

– Andres