Monday's Market Minute: Watching Consumer Trends

The week begins with limited economic data in terms of numbers that have the potential to move markets or shift trader sentiment, but that will change quickly as we head into the middle of the week as the focus shifts to housing data, the jobs report, and companies reporting quarterly results. After last week’s housing data was somewhat mixed (the NAHB beat expectations, but the Building Permits and Housing Starts data was less exciting) this week’s Existing Home Sales, New Home Sales, and FHFA Housing Market Index data will hopefully provide investors with more information as to how the housing market has weathered the storm this pandemic has brought on, and will provide further insight to U.S. consumer spending habits and current home buying trends. The housing market plays a major role in the U.S. economy – one could argue it’s the epicenter of where consumer borrowing and spending occurs.

In addition to the housing data, keep an eye on the Jobless Claims Thursday. There will also be Leading Indicators, the PMI Composite Flash, and inventory data from the EIA – all have potential commodity markets as demand for crude products, which can be directly tied to the pace of the recovery. In terms of earnings, keep an eye on Tesla Inc TSLA, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, Intel Corporation INTC, Twitter Inc TWTR, IBM Common Stock IBM, and Align Technology, Inc. ALGN, to name a few, but there are plenty more. All of these will provide information about consumer trends, and ultimately, that’s a big part of what we make trading decisions based on. So keep an eye on the data this week - not only the economic releases but also the U.S. earnings and international data for a greater understanding of what’s going on with the economy.

Photo by Terrah Holly on Unsplash