M Notes: Mon, 4-13

LAST WEEK:

Markets:  The Cease Fire with Iran released a second rebound week.  

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

Durable Goods:   Think refrigerators and washer & dryers.  The February DG number missed expectations of -0.2%, coming in at -1.4%.  

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.694 Trillion.  Up $19 Billion last week.    

Fed Minutes:   These are from the Fed Meeting three weeks ago.  It appears three camps have emerged within the Fed’s FOMC.  One camp supported a pause to rate cuts.  Another camp wanted to continue with rate cuts.  While a third camp wanted to consider rate hikes.  The determining factor of how to respond for some FOMC members was Inflation.  

GDP:  The final read on Q4 GDP fell from an earlier estimate of +0.7% down a touch to +0.5%.  

Inflation:  Two reads last week.  The PCE, the Federal Reserve’s main Inflation focus, remained at +2.8% Y/Y.  The February PCE was expected to go up 0.4%, but actually dropped -0.1%.  The CPI (Consumer Inflation) rose from +2.4% (Feb) up to +3.3% (Mar) Y/Y.  The CPI rose in March, as expected, from +0.3% up to +0.9%.  

ISM:  The Institute for Supply Management’s Service index dropped from 56.1 (Feb) to 54.0 (Mar).  Services represent 70% of the U.S. economy.  Two weeks ago, their Manufacturing index rose a bit from February’s 52.4 number, up to 52.7 in March.  Manufacturing represents 30% of the U.S. economy.  A number below 50 implies an economic contracting in Manufacturing, while a number above 50 implies an economic expansion.  

Masters:  Rory McIlroy took home $4.5 million and his second green jacket for winning the Masters.  

Metals:  Gold finished the week at $4,771.  Silver finished the week at $76.

National Debt:  $39.11 Trillion.   

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  While there will be a couple of economic data updates, the focus remains on Oil and what’s happening in the Middle East.  Over the weekend, Iran  declined the U.S.’ terms of surrender.  It appears they still want the opportunity to build a nuclear weapon.     While futures were down this morning, they could have been much worse.   We’ll see how this plays out.  But this is why, for situations like this, I use Equity investments that have a safety net built into them.  It helps take some of the fear out of investing.  

Calendar:   Existing Homes Sales (Mon); the PPI (Tue); the Fed’s Beige Book (Wed); and Industrial Production (Thu).

* 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.