Weekly Market Review - October 4, 2019

Weekly Market Review - October 4, 2019

StrategIQ® Financial Group, LLC |
Categories
Finance

By Bradley J. Rathe, AIF®
Chief Investment Officer

October 4, 2019

"Don't let yesterday take up too much of today." Will Rogers

Weekly look back:
  1. ISM Data from last week concerned the market.  As expected, manufacturing fell as tariffs increased.  The bigger concern was the slowing service sector, which had not been affected by the slowing of the world economy until now.
  2. The jobs picture continues to be strong with the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years.  Wage growth was flat and prior to this report was a key ingredient for strong consumer spending.
  3. International Trade has decreased as trade negotiations have stalled and ongoing tariff threatens to pull down confidence to make ongoing capital investments.
Weekly look ahead:
  1. The market hopes that the FOMC Minutes from the last meeting, which will be released shortly, will signal that the Fed will reduce rates at its next meeting at the end of this month.
  2. Inflation has picked up in many of the reports recently, including the Fed's favorite PCE. However, we expect the PPI and CPI to show slowing inflation pressures as energy prices have come back down.
  3. Positive Sentiment and Confidence are critical to the success of America's economy.  Positive Sentiment has been waning recently, causing world trade to slow.
World Macro highlights for this week: 

Tuesday: PPI (Producer Inflation), NFIB Small Biz Optimism Index
Thursday: CPI (Consumer Inflation), ECB minutes
Friday: Consumer Sentiment, Import and Export Prices

2019 Yearly Index Returns as of 10/4/2019

S&P 500 

19.44%

Europe Equity

13.85%

Emerging Equity

8.50%

US 10 Yr

-1.17 bp

US Small Cap Stocks

12.47%

 

Graph Of The Week

Economics data is difficult to predict. Unemployment fell to 3.5% in the report last week. We predict that this is about as low as it is likely to go. 

Unless otherwise expressly indicated, the opinions or views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect, and may differ from, the opinions or views of Strategic Financial Group, LLC or others within Strategic Financial Group, LLC, including its officers, managers, owners, employees or other service providers.