M Notes: Mon, 3-9

LAST WEEK:

Markets:  Oil went up +36% last week.  And Markets rode the Roller Coaster last week.

S&P roller coaster last week:  Up a touch, Down a lot, Up a lot, Down, and Down significantly.

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.63 Trillion.  

Fed Beige Book:   Seven of the Fed’s twelve Districts saw a slight increase in the last reporting period.  Five reported flat or declining activity.  The Cleveland District (the 4th) was one of the seven that saw a slight increase.  

ISM:  The Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing index was basically flat, dropping a touch from 52.6 down to 52.4.   But their Services index rose from 53.6 up to 56.1.  A number below 50 implies a contraction for that index.  A number above 50 implies an expansion for that index.  

Jobs:  In a surprise, the Jobs number came in at -92,000 for February.  Coming off of +130,000 Jobs in January, expectations were for +60,000.

Metals:  Gold finished the week at $5,181.  Silver finished the week at $85.

National Debt:  $38.78 Trillion.   

Retail Sales:  It was down -0.2% in January, but Sales were up +3.2% Y/Y.  Sales for Autos were unchanged in January.  Take Autos out and Sales were up +3.9% Y/Y.

Unemployment:  The U3 Unemployment Rate clicked up from 4.3% to 4.4%.

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  Inflation and Oil.  Consumer Inflation gets updated on Wednesday.  Wholesale Inflation gets updated on Thursday.  And the metric the Fed focuses on, the PCE, gets updated on Friday.  Oil:   Just how high will it climb this week?   

Calendar:   Existing Home Sales (Tue); the CPI (Wed); the PPI, Housing Starts, the Trade Deficit (Thu); the 2nd read on Q4 GDP, and the PCE (Fri).

Earnings:  The current Earnings Season is almost done.  Some of the companies reporting this week:  Adobe, Dollar General, Oracle, and Volkswagen.

* The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be representative of the stock market in general.    The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a price-weighted index of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks.  The NASDAQ Composite Index is an unmanaged, market-weighted index of all over-the-counter common stocks traded on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System.  Yahoo! Finance, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily and Barron’s are several of the sources used for financial information. 

* The National Debt figure comes from usdebtclock.org.   

* Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance.  Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision.  You cannot invest directly in an index.   Past performance does not guarantee future results. No strategy can assure a profit or protect against a loss.  Investments in the securities markets involve risk, such as loss of your principal.