Dividend stock analysis and picks
Over the long weekend, there was news that U.S. job growth was overstated by 1 million in 2025 – the largest annual revision in 20 years.
We got the big CPI report this morning and it showed inflation slowing to 2.4% annually and 0.2% monthly – below expectations and below the previous months.
We got the retail sales data from December this morning. Which showed an unexpected stagnation. In short, there’s quite a bit of mixed data coming out around the economy lately…
Nothing on the economic menu today – just a host of Fed speeches. This week though, we’ll finally get the official U.S. employment report on Wednesday, followed by the CPI report on Friday.
Yesterday, U.S. job openings came in at 6.5 million – far below the expected 7.1 million. The official unemployment rate numbers have been pushed back to next Wednesday. We also got some preliminary consumer sentiment numbers – which unexpectedly rose.
In the absence of yesterday’s job openings data, we got the private sector numbers this morning. It showed a rise of 22,000 jobs in January – far below the expected 45,000.
It’s a big week for jobs data – starting with the job openings numbers tomorrow. But today, all we have on deck is some manufacturing activity data, which showed surprising growth. That’s a good sign for the economy.
The producer price data came in this morning and it was hotter than expected – at 0.5% monthly and 3% annually. Coupled with Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh, a noted monetary “hawk”, as new Fed Chair nominee this morning and markets have been under pressure.
The usual weekly jobless claims numbers came in this morning. At 209,000 it was a slight increase from last week – and also marginally ahead of expectation. We also received productivity data from the third quarter, which came in bang on in line with expectations. Tomorrow, we’ll get some major...
The Fed decision comes out in an hour. Then, Powell begins his market-moving press conference 30 minutes later. Everyone will be closely watching.
We just got the latest consumer confidence numbers this morning and they came in substantially below expectations. While that will likely not play into Fed Chair Powell’s market-moving press conference tomorrow, it will likely influence investors’ reactions to Powell’s conference. We’ll see how it...
Not much on the economic calendar today. The Fed starts its monetary policy meeting tomorrow, with the decision and the press conference on Wednesday. All eyes will be on that. Let’s see how markets have been moving.
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