The Week on Wall Street
With growing confidence in the economy’s resilience, stocks posted another week of solid gains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.31%, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 advanced 1.79%. The Nasdaq Composite index picked up 1.98% for the week. The MSCI EAFE index, which tracks developed overseas stock markets, added 0.27%.1,2,3
Stocks Extend Gains
Markets bounced around all week as investors grappled with the crosswinds of rising yields, continued hostilities in Ukraine, and hawkish comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell. After suffering declines in two of the first three trading sessions of the week, stocks turned higher on a good jobless claims number that investors interpreted as continuing economic strength.
Stocks drifted higher as the week came to a close amid rising bond yields, which on Friday saw the 10-year Treasury yield rise for the 13th time in 16 trading sessions.4
Labor Market
Many economists speculated that the invasion of Ukraine would likely shave economic growth in the short term as hostilities worsened supply chains and increased inflationary pressures. The impact, so far, has not been seen in the labor market.
Last week’s initial jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 187,000, the lowest level since December 1969. The number of people on state unemployment rolls fell to 1.35 million, from 1.42 million the previous week, while open jobs are at a near-record high of 11.3 million. Employers’ need for workers suggests that the demand for products and services has remained resilient despite the events in Eastern Europe.5
T H E W E E K L Y R I D D L E
New furniture will be delivered to your office on the day before five days from the day after tomorrow. If today is August 18, when will the furniture arrive?
LAST WEEK’S RIDDLE: Two lawyers sit at opposite ends of a large conference table. Nothing is in between them but the table, yet they don’t see each other. How is this possible?
ANSWER: They are both sitting so that their backs are turned to each other.
Posted on