Losing Traction – The major U.S. indexes fell for the fifth week in a row after a rapid shift in sentiment sent stocks reeling on Thursday. On Friday, an employment report showed that the economy generated 428,000 jobs in April, and the major indexes ended up with relatively modest weekly declines: -1.5% for the NASDAQ and about -0.2% for the S&P 500 and Dow.
3.00% + Yields – Prices of government bonds fell, sending the yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury Bond surging late in the week. The yield jumped from 2.92% to 3.07% on Thursday before climbing to 3.13% on Friday, the highest level since November 2018. As recently as mid-2020, the yield was around 0.50%.
GDP Speed Bump? – The U.S. economy reversed course in this year’s first quarter when it shrank at an annual rate of 1.4% after posting full-year growth of 5.7% in 2021. While many economists believe the first-quarter setback was temporary, it marked the worst quarterly GDP result since the second quarter of 2020, when the pandemic triggered a brief recession.
Top News to Watch this Week
Price Check – A Consumer Price Index report scheduled to be released on Wednesday will show whether the U.S. economy got any relief in April from surging inflation. A month earlier, the government reported that inflation accelerated in March at an 8.5% annual rate, the highest since 1981-eclipsing the previous month’s 7.9% figure.
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