M Notes: Mon, 8-18

LAST WEEK:  

Markets:  The S&P500 has been up 5 of the last 7 weeks.

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

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.644 Trillion. 

Inflation:  Consumer Inflation (via the Consumer Price Index) remained at 2.7% Y/Y in July.  Wholesale Inflation (via the Producer Price Index) jumped from 2.3% up to 3.3% Y/Y in July.

Jobless claims:  The weekly number came in at 224,000.  The four-week average came in at 222,000.

National Debt:  $37.247 Trillion.  (It’s going up about $28-30 Billion/week.)

Retail sales:  They rose +0.5% (as expected) in July, and rose +3.9% Y/Y.  

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  The Fed’s Jackson Hole Symposium.  It starts with a nice dinner on Thursday night.  This year’s theme:  “Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy”.   But the focus will be on Jerome Powell’s Keynote speech on Friday morning.  Is the Fed set to cut their interest rate at their September meeting?  Will Powell give any indication of the Fed’s intentions?   Or will the tap dance continue?  

Calendar:   Housing Starts (Tue); Fed Minutes (Wed); Existing Home Sales, and Jobless Claims (Thu); and Fed Chair Keynote speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium (Fri).

Earnings:  This current Earnings Season is winding down.  Some of the companies reporting this week are:  Home Depot, Intuit, Lowe’s, Medtronic, TJX Companies, and Walmart.  

* 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.