This past week, we saw quite a bit of red in the market, as major indices were down across the board. The Dow was down 1.27%, the S&P was down 1.30%, the Nasdaq was down 1.65%, and the Russell was down 2.22% on a week-over-week basis. This was largely due to some news that was great for the overall economy but viewed as a negative for the stock market. However, we’re not out of the woods yet, as we have another important week in terms of both economic data and earnings releases in front of us!
Last week, the jobs report came in a bit hotter than expected. Analysts expected 155,000 new jobs added in December and an unemployment rate of 4.2%. However, the actual numbers came in at 256,000 and 4.1%, respectively. This continued boom in employment has led Wall Street to believe that we won’t be seeing another rate cut from the Fed during their next meeting, which, of course, drove markets down in a huge way on Friday.
Although we had a big week in terms of economic data releases last week, we have another one ahead of us. We kick things off on Tuesday with PPI, followed by CPI on Wednesday and retail sales as well as the home builder confidence index on Thursday. We then round the week out on Friday with housing starts and building permits. It will be particularly important to pay attention to PPI and CPI, as the general feeling amongst the public is that things are not becoming any more affordable. If we see certain segments of PPI and CPI tick up, we might have to brace ourselves for more inflation!
This week, Q4 earnings season heats up, with some very important companies reporting their earnings, such as:
01/13 – KB Home (KBH)
01/15 – J P Morgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), BlackRock (BLK), Citigroup (C), Charles Schwab (SCHW), Kinder MOrgan (KMI), The Bank of New York Mellon (BK)
01/16 – Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Bank of AMerica (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS), PNC Financial Services Group (PNC), U.S. Bancorp (USB), M&T Bank (MTB), J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT)
01/17 – Truist Financial (TFC), Schlumberger (SLB), Fastenal (FAST), State Street Corporation (STT), Huntington Bancshares (HBAN), Regions Financial (RF), Citizens Financial Group (CFG)
This week, all eyes will again be on the big banks reporting earnings, like JPM, WFC, BLK, C, SCHW, BK, & BAC. These banks are going to give us a great idea of how the overall economy is performing and how consumers are doing in terms of their balance sheets.
Additionally, it will be important to pay attention to what TSM has to say. The stock market is still riding the AI wave, and TSM is one of the most entrenched players in this space. They should be able to give some great commentary around the demand that they are seeing in the chip space, which will undoubtedly move both the market and other semi companies, like NVDA, AVGO, and AMD, to name a few!
Monitoring the market conditions this week.
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