Weekly Market Update

We enter what is typically the busiest week of any month as far as first-tier economic data is concerned, headlined by the jobs report on Friday, but this week the economic data will spar with geo-political developments for investor attention. The weekend war news creates additional issues and uncertainties that the market must react to…

Questions continue to swirl regarding the ultimate impact of AI on the economy, and that has kept equities from breaking to new highs. Another blowout earnings report from Nvidia wasn’t enough to rekindle animal spirits. Those risk asset struggles continue to aid Treasuries and with geo-political risk looming, there are more Treasury bids waiting in…

President Trump’s first State of the Union Address in his second term was a longwinded affair, longest ever actually, but it didn’t break new ground and didn’t relent from tariffs being a centerpiece of trade policy, despite last week’s Supreme Court ruling.  Of the 1 hour 45-minute speech, 8.5% was spent on national security, 6.6%…

This week was supposed to be something of a placeholder with mostly second-tier economic releases but the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling from Friday adds an element of intrigue into the week. With the Court declaring the use of IEEPA to implement tariffs as unconstitutional, markets are poised for a reaction from the White House. While…

With geo-political issues swirling we end the holiday-shortened week with a pair of headline grabbing reports: Fourth Quarter GDP and Personal Income and Spending. We discuss the results of both of those reports below and look ahead to next week where the Conference Board’s February look at consumer confidence headlines a second-tier list of releases….

If you thought after a week that brought you a jobs report, an inflation report, and Retail Sales that this week would be a little less intense, you’re right! Most of what we’ll see this week is second tier and/or somewhat stale and what we do care about will be arriving on Friday. So, market…

With the brief government shutdown from two weeks ago, we had a unique experience with a jobs and inflation report in the same week. While both are not likely to alter a rate decision in March, it was a curious development to see the key reports for both the Fed’s dual mandates arrive within days…

January nonfarm payrolls rose 130 thousand, doubling the 68 thousand expected and 48 thousand gained in December (revised lower from an initial 50 thousand).   Two-month revisions cut 17 thousand jobs from previous estimates with November revised 15 thousand lower and December 2 thousand lower. Private sector job growth was 172 thousand which is more…

The brief government shutdown has made this week much more important than originally planned. The delayed January jobs report will be released Wednesday and January CPI will be released on Friday (the 13th no less). That lineup alone would be considerable but add in December Retail Sales tomorrow and we’ll cover plenty of bases, from…

Yesterday brought an array of data that all seemed to line up agreeing that the labor market is taking another step back. Whether it was JOLTS with its significant dip in job openings, initial jobless claims moving decidedly higher, or Revelio Labs reporting 13 thousand jobs lost in January, the message to the Fed is…

The first government shutdown of 2026 lasted all of three days but that was enough to see the BLS delay its releases this week which included the December JOLTS due yesterday and more importantly the January BLS Nonfarm Payrolls due on Friday. The House passed the bill, which funds an array of agencies through September,…

We enter what should be a busy week of labor market data, but the government is in a partial shutdown. Sound familiar? Well, the good news is this shutdown shouldn’t last a month. The House will vote tomorrow on funding bills, and a 2-week extension of DHS funding, that the Senate approved late last week….