Weekly Market Review - March 6, 2018

Chad Hassinger |
Categories
Finance

By Bradley J. Rathe
Chief Investment Officer

March 6, 2018

"If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough." - Mario Andretti

Weekly look back:
  1. The question is do we have 3 or 4? That is the question everyone is asking of the new Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his testimony in front of the House and Congress hinted at potential for four rate rises.
  2. GDP was revised slightly lower to 2.5% with consumer spending making up a bulk of the advance.  The GDP Price index, a Fed favorite, rose at a 2.4% rate.
  3. President Trump placed tariffs of 25% on Steel and 10% on Aluminum. The rest of the world responded with threats of their own tariffs on American Goods. Economists get concerned about trade wars because it was a main cause of the Great Depression. 
Weekly look ahead:
  1. Jobs Data is expected to stay strong with 205k new jobs expected. With the rate at around 4% there is much talk about full employment and the probability of it causing future inflation.
    Central banks of Canada and Europe announce interest rate decisions this week. As central banks start to have differing policies, it most likely will start to cause more volatility in the world markets.
    Consumer Credit growth is running at close to 6%. This week we get new numbers and many are starting to get concerned that the use of too much credit could hurt future growth. 
World Macro highlights for this week: 

Monday: ISM Non-Manufacturing
Tuesday: Productivity and Costs, Beige Book and Consumer Credit
Friday: US Jobs data

Graph Of The Week

US Jobs data is normally the most watched economic release of the month. The release is Friday at 7:30 am CST.

Missing media item.

 

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