Happy Sunday! We've got a somewhat less busy week ahead of us than last week, but still plenty of moving parts to keep an eye on. But first, let's talk about what just happened!
The week that was ..
We had a cooler than expected CPI reading on lucky Tuesday the 13th, which led to a pre-market pop that quickly faded leading into Fednesday, where the FOMC statement and press conference were more hawkish than the market anticipated.
Retail sales came in on Thursday weaker than forecasted, but jobless claims were also lower, illustrating that the labor market remains rather tight while consumers are stepping back a bit.
We also had the ECB and Bank of England policy decisions on Thursday. Then on Friday we had a triple witching OpEx with $4.2T of notional exposure rolling off, making for a rather volatile day.
The resulting tumult had equity markets falling last week, led by the high beta NASDAQ index, which shed 2.7%. Oil on the other hand was bid up 4.6%, but remains close to flat year-to-date after a rather volatile 2022.