The past week was another consequential one for traders as several significant news reports were made public. The main event of the week was the Fed’s December rate decision that was made on Wednesday afternoon.
The Fed decided to cut the nation’s main interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.75 percent. Technically, the Fed Funds rate is in a range between 3.75 percent and 4 percent. There were two voting members who dissented claiming that inflation was still too high and would be an issue for the foreseeable future. However, the base case for 2026 is that additional cuts will likely be made assuming that economic and labor conditions don’t change drastically to the upside.
On Tuesday, the JOLTS report was released and revealed that there were 7.67 million openings in the United States. This was roughly 500,000 jobs more than the projected figure of 7.14 million prior to the release. However, it was slightly higher than the previous month’s figure of 7.66 million.
Thursday saw the release of the weekly unemployment claims figures. Over the past seven days, there were 236,000 requests for benefits, which was significantly higher than last week’s 192,000 claims. The actual figure was also much higher than what analysts expected prior to the release.
The nonfarm payroll report for November is scheduled to be released this coming Tuesday, and that should provide some more clarity about the actual health of the economy. It’s believed that the economy added just 50,000 jobs that month, which would be less than half of the 119,000 created in September. September is the last month in which data was collected and released because of the government shutdown and the decision to cancel the release of the October report.
Over the past five trading days, the S&P 500 lost almost 47 points to close the week at 6,827. This was a loss of 0.68 percent for the week, but the index is still up almost 13 percent from this time last year, and it has appreciated significantly since April when the index dropped below 4,900. For the week, the market made a high of 6,901 on Thursday and a low of 6,803 on Friday morning.
The Dow was up this week by 615 points to close Friday at 48,458. It is currently near its all-time high and is expected to continue rallying through the end of 2025 as December tends to be a good month for stocks. This week, the Dow made a low of 47,537 on Wednesday and a high of 48,871 on Friday morning.
The Nasdaq was also down this week by more than 580 points to close at 25,196. This was a loss of 2.25 percent over the last five trading days for an index that is up more than 16.5 percent over the past 12 months. During the past five days, the index made a high of 25,818 on Wednesday and closed near its low of the week.
In international news, Australia announced on Monday evening that it was keeping the nation’s key interest rate at 3.6 percent. On Wednesday, Canada announced that its key rate was going to stay at 2.25 percent. Thursday, Switzerland followed suit by keeping its key interest rate at 0 percent. Finally, on Friday morning, Great Britain reported that its gross domestic product fell by 0.1 percent in November.
The upcoming week is likely to be another interesting one as the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases its version of the nonfarm payroll report. Retail sales data as well as the Flash Manufacturing and Flash Service PMIs will also be made public on Tuesday. Inflation and unemployment claims data will be made public on Thursday while the University of Michigan will release consumer sentiment and inflation expectation information on Friday.