The old saying is true – big things can come in small packages.
And that’s just what investors received this week. With the Labor Day holiday, there were only four days of trading. However, those four days were packed with a variety of economic data, critical retail earnings announcements and geopolitical events, the biggest of which was a disappointment on trade.
Last week, positive trade news dominated the headlines and helped push up the markets. However, it was the opposite this week. A fresh round of negative Tweets pertaining to the NAFTA agreement, Canada and potential increases to the number of tariffs affecting China caused stocks to generally drift lower over the week. Investors had been hoping that last week’s good news with Mexico would carry through this week. However, traders weren’t so lucky.
Nor were they lucky on the earnings front. While the season is starting to dwindle down, several key retailers reported profits this week. Unfortunately, the reports bordered on either spectacular or abysmal. Retail is still a hard nut to crack and those that haven’t gotten it right yet were punished severely. That brought down many indices on the week.
Perhaps the only positive was the plethora of strong economic data. The U.S. economy continues to be strong. This certainly helped buoy the losses on the week.
