Pre-market futures started this final morning of the trading week in the green, with the small-cap Russell 2000 leading the way, +0.50%. The Dow is up 100 points or +0.30% at this hour, and the S&P 500 is currently +0.18%. Only the Nasdaq, which posted the biggest drop in Thursday’s down day of trading, is flat in early morning trading.
With nearly all of the S&P 500 having already reported calendar Q2 earnings, we shift our focus to economic reports in order to read the tea leaves of where we are headed, a week and a month ahead of the end of Q3. Today we see the final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for August — expected to come in at an even 71.2%, same as the previous month — but next week cranks up the monthly and quarterly reports.
For one, it’s an early Jobs Week next week: private-sector payrolls come out Wednesday (August 30 — these usually don’t hit until the first week of the following month) and U.S. nonfarm payrolls from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are out a week from today. In addition, we’ll also see the first revision to Q2 GDP, new Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) data, JOLTS, a new Case-Shiller Home Price Index and ISM Services and Manufacturing. For a week that is typically sleepy in terms of market activity, we’ll be brimming with new factoids to consider ahead of Labor Day.
The big event today will be the annual speech given by Fed Chair Jay Powell at the Economic Symposium at Jackson Hole, WY. A couple years ago, this is where Powell gave his infamous “inflation is transitory” speech, which salved market participants near-term but left them wanting once inflation proved much more stubborn. Today, analysts will be paying close attention to how warm Powell might be toward keeping rates where they are — and perhaps when we might expect to see them come down (though don’t bet on it).
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Market Eagerly Awaits Powell's Wyoming Speech
Pre-market futures started this final morning of the trading week in the green, with the small-cap Russell 2000 leading the way, +0.50%. The Dow is up 100 points or +0.30% at this hour, and the S&P 500 is currently +0.18%. Only the Nasdaq, which posted the biggest drop in Thursday’s down day of trading, is flat in early morning trading.
With nearly all of the S&P 500 having already reported calendar Q2 earnings, we shift our focus to economic reports in order to read the tea leaves of where we are headed, a week and a month ahead of the end of Q3. Today we see the final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for August — expected to come in at an even 71.2%, same as the previous month — but next week cranks up the monthly and quarterly reports.
For one, it’s an early Jobs Week next week: private-sector payrolls come out Wednesday (August 30 — these usually don’t hit until the first week of the following month) and U.S. nonfarm payrolls from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are out a week from today. In addition, we’ll also see the first revision to Q2 GDP, new Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) data, JOLTS, a new Case-Shiller Home Price Index and ISM Services and Manufacturing. For a week that is typically sleepy in terms of market activity, we’ll be brimming with new factoids to consider ahead of Labor Day.
The big event today will be the annual speech given by Fed Chair Jay Powell at the Economic Symposium at Jackson Hole, WY. A couple years ago, this is where Powell gave his infamous “inflation is transitory” speech, which salved market participants near-term but left them wanting once inflation proved much more stubborn. Today, analysts will be paying close attention to how warm Powell might be toward keeping rates where they are — and perhaps when we might expect to see them come down (though don’t bet on it).