The week after the election was a pivotal one for the market as a slew of important data was released. The first important piece of news came out on Tuesday as inflation figures for the month and year were made public. Over the past month, core inflation rose by .3 percent, which was in line with expectations. Overall inflation rose .2 percent on a monthly basis. On an annual basis, inflation rose by 2.6 percent, which was expected but still higher than the 2.4 percent figure in October.
On Thursday, both the Core Price Producers Index (PPI) and the overall PPI were released. Core PPI came in at .3 percent on a monthly basis while overall PPI came in at .2 percent on a monthly basis. Both of these figures were in line with expectations prior to their release.
Thursday also saw the release of unemployment claim data for the past seven days. There were 217,000 requests for benefits during this time compared to an estimated 224,000. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke on Thursday afternoon, and his comments caused some to doubt whether there would be a further rate cut in December.
Although it’s still likely to see another cut of 25 basis points next month, Powell said that there was a need for caution amid uncertainty. The election of President Trump is expected to usher in policies that may be inflationary in nature, which could make it unwise to change rates until more data can be scrutinized.
On Friday, retail sales data for October came out that showed a .4 percent increase over the past month while core retail sales were up .1 percent. It was believed that both core and overall retail sales rose .3 percent over the past month. When taken together, CPI, PPI and retail sales data indicate that there is still demand in the economy that could place upward pressure on prices in the future. As economists like to say, inflation is sticky and may not be going away anytime soon.
The S&P 500 finished the week down 2.41 percent to close at 5,870 just a week after if broke 6,000 for the first time ever. The market opened on Monday morning at its weekly high of 6,014 before spending most of the week losing ground. On Friday, the S&P made its low of the week at 5,854.
The Dow finished the week down 2.07 percent to close at 43,444. It would also open at its high of the week of 44,441 before sliding back to its weekly low of 43,354 on Friday morning. Roughly one-third of the index’s weekly losses came on Friday when it lost nearly 300 points on the day.
The Nasdaq lost 3.51 percent this week to close at 18,680, which was a loss of 678 points over the last five trading days. On Wednesday afternoon, the market made its high of 19,350 before reversing and making its weekly low on Friday afternoon. At that point, the Nasdaq was at 18,605 before gaining back some ground into the close of the week.
A few key pieces of news were released by Great Britain and Australia throughout the course of the last week. Great Britain announced on Friday that its gross domestic product (GDP) over the past month fell by .1 percent. On Tuesday, Australia announced that wages grew by .8 percent over the past quarter while announcing on Wednesday that its unemployment rate was at 4.1 percent.
The upcoming week is going to feature only a couple of key news releases in the United States. On Friday, Flash Manufacturing PMI and Flash Services PMI will be made public in addition to the University of Michigan’s revised consumer confidence and inflation expectation figures.
If you have exposure to international markets, there will be a lot of news to keep your eye on. Early Friday morning, most developed nations in Europe will release their Flash Manufacturing PMI and Flash Services PMI. Great Britain and Canada will release inflation data as well as retail sales data.