Monday's Market Minute: With Powell And Jobs Data Behind Us, The Consumer Is Now In Focus…

Last week, it was all about jobs data and comments from Jerome Powell. And while Non-Farm Payrolls disappointed, coming in slightly below expectations at 130k vs. 160K – Powell did not!

The Fed Chair said he doesn’t foresee a U.S. recession and the U.S. economy is in a good place. U.S. indices rallied on the news, rates inched up off lows, the S&P 500 is nearing all-time highs, and the S&P Consumer Staples ETF (XLP) posted a new high Friday. We also had another draw in weekly crude inventories as the EIA said we took 4.7M barrels from storage, further adding to indications the U.S. consumer remains strong.

This week, we’ll get some data that could support this recent wave of optimism and provide insight as to the health and well-being of the U.S. consumer. We have Retail Sales, PPI, and CPI, all of which are closely watched data points that could provide us more clues as to the impact (if any) the trade war has had on the U.S. consumer. These are closely watched data points for the Fed as they determine the path of rates moving forward and into next week’s Fed decision.

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