The past week was an interesting one for market participants as a mixture of scheduled news releases and unscheduled events created significant volatility. Most notably, Isreal launched attacks on Iran late Thursday night into Friday morning that resulted in the deaths of high-ranking officials.
News of the attacks sent oil prices spiking nearly 13 percent to reach highs of over $75 in intraday trading on Friday. Gold prices were also higher while the stock prices of travel, energy and other companies in relevant industries moved wildly in early morning trading.
Tariff news also dominated headlines this week as the United States and China agreed to a draft trade deal. The main takeaways were that China would face a 55 percent tariff on most goods while the nation would also approve applications from American companies for magnets. It’s expected that the overall deal will make it easier for the United States to make use of rare Earth metals that are sourced from China.
Perhaps the biggest scheduled news event of the week occurred on Wednesday when the CPI report was released. In May, inflation was at 2.4 percent on an annualized basis, which was slightly lower than the predicted 2.5 percent. On a monthly basis, inflation was up .1 percent, which was also slightly lower than the predicted rise of .2 percent.
Prices also rose slower than anticipated in the month of May. On Thursday, it was revealed that the Price Producers Index (PPI) for that month showed an increase of .1 percent compared to an expected rise of .2 percent. Price change data from April was revised to show that prices had dropped by .2 percent during that month.
Unemployment claims data also came out on Thursday, and over the last seven days, there were 248,000 requests for benefits. This figure matched the one from the previous week and was about 6,000 claims higher than expected before the report came out.
On Friday, the University of Michigan released its consumer sentiment and inflation expectation reports. Consumer confidence came in at 60.5 compared to a projected 53.5 while inflation expectations were down to 5.1 percent from 6.6 percent a month ago.
For the week, the S&P 500 was down .51 percent to close at 5,976. This represented a drop of almost 31 points for the index that has been in a trading range for the past couple of weeks. The high of the week came on Wednesday when the market hit 6,058 while the low of the week came on Friday when the index hit 5,970.
The Dow was also down for the week closing off 1.27 percent to finish at 42,197. For the week, the index shaved 540 points and is currently up just .003 percent for the month of June. As with the S&P 500, the Dow made its high of the week on Wednesday of 43,105 before reversing and closing near its weekly low of 42,110 made on Friday morning.
Finally, the Nasdaq was down .91 percent to finish the week at 19,406. The index lost about 184 points this week, but it is still up about 5 percent for the month. The weekly high was made on Wednesday at 19,786 while the weekly low was made on Friday afternoon when the index dipped to 19,380.
In international news, China announced on Sunday that its inflation rate was in the negative for the month of May. On Thursday evening, Great Britain announced that its gross domestic product (GDP) fell by .3 percent in May.
This week is shaping up to be another interesting one for market participants as tariff and geopolitical tensions will likely continue to dominate headlines. However, investors should also keep an eye on retail sale data coming out on Tuesday and the Federal Reserve making its June interest rate decision on Wednesday. The Fed is expected to announce that it will keep rates at 4.5 percent and continue to pause until at least September. Japan, Great Britain and Switzerland will also announce rate decisions this upcoming week.