This week was another consequential one for market participants as worries of a recession continue to mount. At a minimum, investors are looking for clarity as to how tariffs will be implemented and what impacts they will have on the stock market and economy as a whole.
Tuesday saw the first scheduled news release of the week as the JOLTS report came out. It revealed that there were 7.74 million available positions in the United States, which was slightly more than the estimated 7.65 positions before the report was made public.
On Wednesday, inflation data came out and revealed that prices went up a little less than expected in February. During that month, both core and overall CPI increased by .2 percent compared to an expected increase of .3 percent. On an annualized basis, inflation was 2.8 percent compared to projections of 2.9 percent.
On Thursday, the Price Producers Index (PPI) was made public. During February, price growth overall was flat while the core PPI figure was down .1 percent. Also on Thursday, it was determined that 220,000 people requested unemployment benefits over the past seven days. This was slightly lower than last week’s figure of 222,000 and lower than the projected 226,000 claims.
On Friday, the University of Michigan released its consumer sentiment and inflation expectation reports for March. Consumer sentiment came in at 57.9, which was much lower than last month’s figure of 64.7. Meanwhile, respondents said that they expected the inflation rate to be 4.9 percent a year from now. Last month, they said that the inflation rate would be 4.3 percent this time next year.
The S&P 500 lost ground for the fourth straight week as it closed down 1 percent to finish at 5,638. On Monday, the index opened at its highest point of 5,699 before sliding for the next three days. On Thursday, the market hit its lowest point of the week at 5,509 before undergoing a quick rally on Friday. The index is now down 7.3 percent compared to a month ago .
As with the S&P 500, the Dow also lost ground last week. At the close of trading on Friday, the index was 942 points lower than the open on Monday, which was a loss of 2.22 percent over the past five trading days. On Monday morning, the market made its weekly high of 42,484 before undergoing a reversal that wouldn’t end until Thursday afternoon. The market bottomed out at 40,690 before rallying.
The Nasdaq was also down, albeit not as much as the other two major indexes. For the week, it lost .74 percent to close at 17,754, which was a loss of 132 points since Monday’s open. The index opened the week at its highest point of 17,858 before staying relatively range bound over the next four days. On Tuesday, the market made a low of 17,244. Over the past month, the market is down more than 10 percent thanks to outsized losses by companies such as Tesla and Apple.
In international news, Canada decided to lower its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 2.75 percent. On Friday morning, Great Britain announced that its gross domestic product (GDP) was down by .1 percent over the past month.
The upcoming week is going to be several important scheduled events that are sure to result in market volatility. The main event is expected to come on Wednesday when the Fed makes its latest interest rate decision. It’s believed that rates will be held steady at 4.5 percent until at least June. Retail sales data will be released on Monday while unemployment claims data will come out on Thursday as usual.
