This was a pretty flat week in the markets with both the Dow and the S+P changing less than a quarter percent. Likewise the 10 year treasury also hardly moved and stayed at about 1.75%.
On the economic front, both retail sales and housing starts came in lower than expected, showing some signs of slowing. Additionally, China’s GDP growth was lower than expected. None of this really shook the market, and it would have been a nice up week for the Dow if not for bad news on the 737 MAX 8 front pulling Boeing significantly downward. Corporate earnings were mostly in line with estimates with a few standouts such as Alcoa and Netflix.
Next week we have consumer sentiment and new home sales data to look forward to along with about 600 publicly traded companies reporting earnings as earnings season goes into full swing.
~ Alex Parrs