Another green week on the overall market, with S&P 500 ($SPX) (SPY) finishing up over .25%. The two big market components lagged last week with Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA) closing the week down over 3% and 2% respectively which could have played a role in the lackluster SPY return. This also let Apple overtake Nvidia as the second-largest company by market cap, but Nvidia is still firmly over the $3 Trillion threshold.
This coming week is pretty news-heavy with PCE and GDP all due out. In addition, there are several fed speakers at some odd times which can cause some volatility in the market.
Here are 5 things to watch this week in the Market.
FOMC Speakers
Throughout this week there are several FOMC speakers, almost 1 every day, with some of them being outside of market hours and some of them being inside market hours. Whenever they speak though it's possible to get some headline volatility as they discuss fiscal policy and make statements on the conditions inside the US.
CB Consumer Confidence
On Tuesday the real news starts to arrive with the consumer confidence number coming in at 10 am Eastern. This is a marker of consumer spending and potentially about the underlying strength of the economy. This release has been trending down over the past several months and has been revised down further after the fact. If we continue to see this trend keep up we could see the market be put under pressure, at least during the release. If we beat and/or revise the previous months higher we could see the market catch a bid.
Final GDP
Arguably one of the largest measures of economic growth, the final GDP for the first quarter of 2024 is due out Thursday at 8:30 am. This has the potential to be an extremely volatile release and to set the tone for the rest of the trading day. If this release is a beat, we could see the market rally on good news, but this could put pressure on the FED to tighten rates further on continued expansion. If we miss we could see the market dip, but this could have the opposite effect in the long run, and allow the FED to loosen rates sooner.
Pending Home Sales
Also due on Thursday are Pending Home Sale. Last month was a huge miss, coming in at -7.7% vs the -1.1% estimated. If we have another miss like that we could see some heavy volatility in the market. This month they have yet to issue a forecasted value at the time of this writing.
Outside of the potential market impacts of this release, another contraction could start to help ease housing prices as it would mean that inventory is sitting longer on the market and that often means prices start to fall to attract buyers.
Core PCE
Finally, on Friday we have a big inflation release with Core PCE at 8:30. This is the Fed's main way to track inflation and a piece of data they rely on to help craft monetary policy. If this comes in with another miss, meaning it's lower than expected, we could see the market start to rally on the hope that lower inflation means lower rates. If this is a beat, meaning higher than expected, we could see some pressure on the overall market as it could mean that inflation is here to stay. These rate-related releases have moved the market a lot recently, so this is something to be aware of.
Best of luck this week and don’t forget to check out my daily options article.
On the date of publication, Gavin McMaster did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
