First weekly gain after 7 weeks of declines
S&P 500 broke its losing streak this week. The S&P 500 rose daily for the later half of the week, gaining more than 6% over the week. According to research from Bank of America, investors put more than US$20bn into global stocks for the week, making it the largest net inflow in 10 weeks. Just last week, the index briefly dropped into bear market territory (losing 20% from peak) before rallying shortly before markets closed.
Moderating Inflation
On Friday, we got the latest reading of the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) index, which showed prices for core items (excluding more volatile components like food and energy) increasing by 0.3%, vs 4.9% last month. The April reading is still a high 6.3%, coming down slightly from 6.6% in March.
This is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric over the CPI as it accounts for all goods and services...