M Notes: Mon, 9-22

LAST WEEK:

Markets:  Record highs continue. 

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

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.609 Trillion.  

Fed Meeting:   The Fed’s FOMC lowered their rate by -0.25%, as expected.  Two more cuts are expected this year.   

Housing:  Starts were down -8.5% in August and were down -6.0% Y/Y.   

Industrial production: The August number was up +0.1% (up from -0.1% in July).   

Jobless claims:  The weekly number came in at 231,000.  The four-week average came in at 240,000.

National Debt:  $37.392 Trillion.  (It’s going up about $28-30 Billion/week.) 

Retail Sales:  The August number was +0.6% (up from +0.5% in July) and are up +5.0% Y/Y.    

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THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  Inflation.   The Personal Consumption & Expenditures index is the lead metric on Inflation for the Federal Reserve.   Expectations are The August number will come in at +0.3%, while the Y/Y number will climb a tick from +2.6% up to +2.7%.  We get the numbers on Friday morning.  

Calendar:   Existing home sales (Tue); New home sales (Wed); Durable Goods orders, GDP, jobless claims (Thu); and the PCE (Fri).  

* 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.