The Week Ahead – Memorial Day

Welcome to “The Week Ahead” where we take a moment to provide our thoughts on what we can expect in markets and the economy during the upcoming week.

HERE RESTS IN
HONORED GLORY
AN AMERICAN
SOLDIER
KNOWN BUT TO GOD
               -The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Memorial Day, a day when we remember the men and women who died while serving our great country. It was originally known as Decoration Day and came about from the aftermath of the Civil War. Interestingly, while the holiday has been observed since 1868, “Memorial Day” was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. In continued evolution, Congress passed the National Moment of Remembrance Act in 2000, which asked people to stop for a moment of silence at 3:00 PM. Having recently been fortunate enough to watch Hamilton at Segerstrom Hall (and listening to the soundtrack on repeat for the last few weeks), I was reminded that Alexander Hamilton established the Bank of the United States in 1791. Well the Fed isn’t called the Bank of the United States today, so what happened? The charter for the Bank of the United States was not renewed in 1811 and the Second Bank of the United States was established in 1816 and lasted until 1836. The Federal Reserve Bank that we know today was established in 1913. 

This past week we saw heightened macro fears: the On/Off North Korea Summit, On/Off China Trade discussions, and oil taking a large step back on over-production fears. We also saw the release of the Fed Minutes which reaffirmed the path to gradually rising rates and their comfort with the prospects of inflation temporarily running above their long-term 2% target.

The week ahead could see some additional volatility as almost every single day has an important economic data point update. We’ll have the second estimate for first quarter GDP midweek (holding steady would be a positive), an inflation reading (hopefully a small incremental move upward), and then closing with the employment report (eyes on wage growth!).

So who’s ready for Warriors-Cavaliers Part IV?!

Data deck for May 26 – June 1: