The Market Week Ahead: Dec. 31 – Jan. 4

Posted By: usimrc January 1, 2019

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Dec. 31 – After the roller coaster that was last week, this week is off to a much quieter start. We don’t expect that the volatility is over, but any sort of break is nice.

The government shutdown is still short enough to not have major effects to the broader economy, outside of certain areas with lots of government workers. As it drags on though, it will start to show up in the data. Already, some new homes sales are in peril as new flood insurance policies are on hold.

The political machinations over the shutdown, and any new developments in the trade arena are likely to drive the market this week. We’re not overly confident that much progress will be made on either front, but there will almost certainly be more tweets about one, or both, that could be market moving.

With light news calendars, it’s hard to know what direction traders who took last week off will want to go. The market did finish with a gain last week, but is still in a pretty big hole from the September highs. So it’s anyone’s guess if things can hold here, or if the selling will resume.

Economic Events this Week

Friday’s jobs numbers will be the most-watched data reported this week. It will be a jumping off point for new argument about what the Federal Reserve should do about interest rates.

Thursday
- 10:00 a.m. – ISM Manufacturing Index
Friday
- 8:30 a.m. – Nonfarm Payrolls
- 8:30 a.m. – Avg. Hourly Earnings
- 8:30 a.m. – Unemployment Rate
- 8:30 a.m. – Average Workweek
- 11:00 a.m. – EIA Crude Oil Inventories