Market Drama

• Welcome to this week’s Market Drama!

Stock Market Updates:

• The S&P 500 was up 0.5% for the week. Nasdaq was up 1.4%. Both were roughly up 7.5% for the year.
• Oil prices fell almost 7% for the week. But still up 9% YTD.
  • Job report for April was weaker than expected. 
  • Some de-escalation in the Middle East in terms of geopolitical tensions.

Economic Updates: 

• • Deceleration of job growth for April:
    • US jobs totaling 175k in April versus the expected 240k. 
    • Unemployment rate pick up from 3.8 to 3.9.
    • Wage growth showed a deceleration YoY from 4.1% to 3.9%. As a good proxy for inflation, as wage growth continues to come down, pressure from the service sector comes down for the future months. 
  • Earnings delivered strong results, 8 out of 7 sectors are reporting YoY earnings growth.
    • 80% of companies in the S&P 500 have reported.
    • 77% of companies have beat their expectations, slightly above their ten-year average.
  • Federal Reserve held rates as expected. Reminded that the inflationary data does not give them the confidence to lower interest rates soon. Reducing the probability of them cutting interest rates this summer, maybe even this fall. 

Coming up next week:

• Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey
• Outstanding consumer data
• Earnings data

Stay tuned for next week.

– Andres