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.
"It's fun to stay at the, YMCA!" The Village People's iconic song is always a hit at parties – who else can't stop what they're doing and start spelling out YMCA as the chorus rings? This past week, we finally saw NAFTA 2.0/ USMCA (or as I like to call it, YMCA!) finally come together. USMCA stands for the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement after Canada finally came into the fold. “Trade war" settled with "trade peace". What was hyped as our local trade war, in the end only a few billion dollars was the difference between the original NAFTA agreement (to put things in perspective, the U.S. and Canada have a combined $22 trillion economy).
It's fun to stay at the, USA! The unemployment rate declined to 3.7%, the lowest rate since December 1969. However, wage growth ticked down year-over-year to 2.8% from 2.9%. Some of the weakness could be attributed to disruption from Hurricane Florence. With employment continuing to stay steady and trade rhetoric slowly dissipating, the markets can once again focus on the upcoming earnings season.
After this past week's slew of data, the week ahead is relatively quieter with a CPI reading and an update on the Federal Budget.
Data deck for October 6-October 12:
|
Date |
Indicator |
Period |
|
October 9 |
NFIB Small-Business Index |
September |
|
October 10 |
Producer Price Index |
September |
|
October 10 |
Wholesale Inventories |
August |
|
October 10 |
Initial Jobless Claims |
---- |
|
October 11 |
Consumer Price Index |
September |
|
October 11 |
Federal Budget |
September |
|
October 12 |
Import Price Index |
September |
|
October 12 |
Consumer Sentiment Index |
October |