Monday's Market Minute: Watching the Fed

The focus for investors and traders this week is earnings, economic data, and central bank policy decisions.

First off, we have roughly 100 S&P 500 companies reporting quarterly results this week, among them UPS, GM, AAPL, MCD, XOM, GM, GOOG, AMZN, META, F, QCOM, SBUX, and WHR just to name a few off the top of my head—a long list of names to say the least.

In terms of data due out, a slow start to the week with the Dallas Fed this morning. Tomorrow, the Employment Cost Index, Chicago PMI, Consumer Confidence, and the FHFA Housing data are released. Wednesday is when things heat up with the FOMC meeting announcement and Powell’s Q&A session afterwards. We also have JOLTS, the ADP employment figures, some manufacturing numbers, Construction Spending, and the EIA crude inventories—a busy middle of the week. Thursday, weekly Jobless Claims, the Challenger Job-Cut report, and Productivity and Costs will be watched. But this is all leading up to the big number of the week which comes Friday, and that’s the monthly Non-Farm Payrolls data and the wages component associated with it. Friday, we also have ISM Services and the PMI Composite Final, but it’s really all about the jobs to end the week. 

In addition to the Fed this week, we have the Bank of England and the ECB. While the Fed is probably going to raise rates by 25bps, the ECB and the BOE are both expected to go with a 50bps hike. Headed into this week’s decision, the S&P 500 is up 6% to begin the year and the Nasdaq is up around 11% this month; the real question is if earnings and the rhetoric this week from policy makers support the move up as of recent. If momentum continues to the upside, the next big hurdle for the S&P 500 is the December high.

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