August 29, 2023
Good morning,
Earnings season is wrapping up, Jackson Hole is behind us, and the next Fed meeting is over three weeks away (9/20). To say the market will be exclusively data-dependent for the next several weeks may be an understatement. Data-only periods like this tend to be trendless, dare I say choppy (again), as the market over-analyzes and over-extrapolates every nuance inside economic data announcements.
The August employment data on Friday is the big data point this week, and it is as early as it gets (9/1). But that’s not all: Job openings (JOLTS) and Consumer Confidence are on today’s menu. ADP employment, GDP (revision), Advanced Inventories, and Pending Home Sales tomorrow. There are nine announcements on Thursday with Consumption numbers being the heavy in the group. All this will be trumped by Friday’s monthly employment data. You see – nothing but data for as far as the eye can see (9/20 is as far as the market’s eyes can see).
Predicting any single economic release is more than I can pretend to do. In aggregate, however, economic resiliency and sticky core pricing seem to be the risk to the markets – they lead to more Fed tightening.
Be well,
Mike