With the tax bill done and a big rally over the last three months providing some cushion, it appears that President Trump decided to turn up the volume on trade. Pretty much all of the headlines related to trade this week were negative but overall markets have taken the news in stride. For the week most major US indices ended only modestly lower. We’ve continued to see bouts of rotational activity within equity markets this week. As you might expect, in a somewhat flat week the sector level activity was mixed. Energy was the best performing sector up nearly 3%. Info tech continued its outperformance helped by the semis. On the downside, financials were down nearly 2% ahead of the start of earnings next week. Staples were also down with food stocks under pressure after some disappointing earnings. Communication services also underperformed with ad companies getting hit. The other big story this week was the massive rally in the crypto complex amidst a steady stream of crypto-Treasury company announcements and ahead of the House’s “Crypto Week” which starts on Monday. Looking ahead to next week the focus could shift back to the micro from the macro with the official start of earnings season. The key US economic data includes the inflation data and retail sales and a bunch of economic data out of China. Have a great weekend!

Expand article