Inflation data last week that topped expectations — as well as a continued drop in optimism the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes will end sooner rather than later — pressured the major indexes with the Dow logging a fourth-straight losing week and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq suffering their worst weeks of the year, losing 2.7% and 3.4%, respectively. The Dow endured its worst weekly performance since Sept. 2022.
On Friday, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index — the Fed’s preferred assessment of how quickly prices are rising across the economy — showed prices rose 0.6% during the month of January and 5.4% over last year.
The headline PCE index rose at three times December’s pace. The Fed prefers the PCE as it measures behaviour in consumers, rather than just prices. Egg prices, for example, may have risen 8.5% in January, but if no one is buying them because they were so ridiculously expensive, then they’re just sitting on grocery store shelves and not really contributing to inflation. Even after taking out food and energy prices, core PCE in January remains at 0.6%, meaning that more money — 1.8% more than in December, to be precise — was spent on goods and services.
In other news, there is still a high amount of uncertainty over the pace of China’s growth this year while the nation recovers from Covid-19 and influenza outbreaks. Unlike lagging economic indicators — Chinese import and export data for January and February won’t be released until March — shipping companies are already pronouncing a verdict on commodity demand. With no incentive to raise speeds or add more vessels to service routes, these ships are waiting for lackluster exports of steel in Asia to pick up, as well as imports of raw materials and agricultural products from around the world.
With more reports out from the US, UK, and Europe, have your trading charts ready!
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