Continued concerns of weaker global and U.S. growth, driven by U.S-China trade frictions and economic reports pointing to slowdowns in the EU, China and the U.S, helped push commodity and stock markets lower last week.
Continued concerns of weaker global and U.S. growth, driven by U.S-China trade frictions and economic reports pointing to slowdowns in the EU, China and the U.S, helped push commodity and stock markets lower last week.
espite the previous week’s strong GDP report and Friday’s strong payroll report, concerns of stubbornly low price and wage inflation combined with concerns of sluggish consumer spending and business investment led the FOMC to keep the Fed Funds target rate unchanged while indicating there is no strong reason to adjust rates either way.
Positive economic reports from both the U.S. and China combined with increased optimism over a U.S.-China trade agreement pushed U.S stock and commodity markets higher last week.
Continued concerns of U.S. economic growth negatively affected by lower global growth and statements of some Federal Reserve Bank officials indicating it’s too soon to consider lowering rates, limited U.S. stock market gains and helped push commodity markets lower through Wednesday last week.
Overcoming concerns of China resisting U.S. trade demands, commodity and U.S stock markets initially reacted positively to statements released after the end of the 2-day FOMC meeting on Wednesday indicating the U.S Federal Reserve would not raise rates in 2019 and would end the wind-down of its balance sheet by September.
Stronger-than-expected durable goods orders, consumer sentiment and job openings numbers combined with tepid inflation numbers overcame larger-than-expected jobless claims and disappointing industrial production numbers and helped push commodity and U.S. stock markets higher.