Market Drama

Welcome to this week’s Market Drama!

• The Stock Market:
  • The S&P 500 was up 1% for the week.
    • It’s up 19.3% year-to-date. 
  • Nasdaq was up even more by 2%.
    • It is now up 37% year-to-date.
  • Oil was up 3% for the week and is now flat year-to-date. 
• Economic Data:
  • What drove the markets last week?
    • The Fed meetings – hiking interest rates by 25 basis points.
      • The Fed Chair Powell was careful not to declare mission accomplished. 
  • The market is pricing. If you look at the future markets, they’re expecting the Fed not to hike interest rates any more and to actually lower interest rates in March of next year. 
  • Core PCE continues to moderate and come down. 
  • Oil has been on a tear, up now 19% in the last 30 days. 
  • CRM commodities index is up 11% in July. 
  • We are not totally out of the woods when it comes to inflation. 
  • Good news:
    • GDP data shows no sign of an imminent recession.
      • We see more of rolling recessions on some parts of the economy such as manufacturing and housing.
    • Economic growth remains resilient. 

What to look out for this week: 

• U.S. payrolls from July and U.S. hourly wages.
  • Will give us a sense on how inflation might look in the coming months. 

Stay tuned for next week. 

– Andres