Three key policy issues achieved greater clarity last week. The U.S. and China reached a “phase one” trade deal. The U.S. will reduce some existing tariffs and not implement a set of planned tariffs in exchange for greater grain exports and some improvement to technology regulation. China i …
A powerful jobs report in the U.S. produced continued evidence the U.S. economy is performing well and the risk of recession is lower. As discussed in greater depth below, the economy produced 266,000 jobs in November, and jobs numbers for the previous two months were revised higher. The ri …
Trade negotiators remained primarily responsible for the market yo-yoing up and down in a tight range. Last week, the U.S. and China both shared positive comments about the status of negotiations toward a “Phase One” deal. Asian economies are more tightly tied to trade than other regions, a …
Happy Thanksgiving! After a few weeks where growing hopes of a U.S.-China trade deal propelled markets higher, the opposite occurred last week. Trade negotiations took a small step backward, and global stocks followed. Other global economic news was generally positive.
The S&P 500 continued to edge higher and closed Friday at another all-time high. News that U.S.-China trade negotiations continued to progress kept markets moving higher. U.S. economic news was mixed. Retail sales missed expectations but have still grown more than 3% over the last 12 months.
Last week was quieter following the multiple major data releases and Fed meeting the previous week. England and Australia left interest rates unchanged. U.S. and Chinese trade data showed both economies continue to struggle with the effects of a trade war.
