M Notes: Tue, 6-22

LAST WEEK:  

Markets:  While pondering if Iran has any intention of keeping a deal, Oil dropped and Markets moved up cautiously.

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

Fed Balance Sheet:  $6.736 Trillion.   

Fed Meeting:  Kevin Warsh led his first Fed meeting and had his first press conference.  No change in the Fed’s 3.50–3.75% interest rate.  PCE Inflation is forecasted to end at 3.6% in 2026.  19 people participated in the FOMC meeting.   9 seemed to feel rates should go down a bit, while 9 felt rates might need to go up a touch.  Warsh, who feels too much communication comes out of the Fed, abstained.  He announced the formation of 5 task forces to examine and improve how the Fed operates.   Those areas:  Communications, their Balance sheet, Data Sources, Productivity/Jobs, and Inflation. 

Market Holiday:   U.S. Markets were closed last Friday, in observance of the Juneteenth holiday.  

Housing:  Starts were down -15.4% in May, and were down -8.7% Y/Y.  

Industrial Production:  It went up +0.1% in May.  

Metals:  Gold finished the week at $4,246.  Silver finished the week at $66.

National Debt:  $39.283 Trillion.  

Retail Sales:  The May number came in at +0.9%, and were up +6.9% Y/Y.  

--------------------

THIS WEEK:

Focus of the week:  Inflation.  On Thursday morning, we get the latest (May) Personal Consumption and Expenditure index.   Expectations are their Y/Y number will climb from 3.8% up to 4.1%.

Calendar:   New Home Sales (Wed); Durable Goods Orders, the final read on Q1 GDP, and the May PCE (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.