FinSer

Financial Focus
January 20, 2025

Due to expected inclement weather and its anticipated impact on power and the roads, the Financial Focus will not likely be sent out early Tuesday morning. Hopefully, it will be sent out in the afternoon. We are sorry for the inconvenience. The first paragraph below is a summary of last week and the second paragraph is a brief preview of the rest of this week. To our Northern readers, your weather is down here, please come down and take it back home with you.

GOOD MORNING! The intermediate maturity sector of the Treasury curve led yields lower by 15 to 10 basis points as PPI and core CPI were softer than expected and by dovish comments by Fed Governor Christopher Waller. Good news on the inflation front, data (the previous week’s employment report and retails sales) suggesting strong economic momentum and good earnings reports attributed to moderate gains in the various stock indices. The Dow and the S&P gained approximately 3% on the week.
The economic date release calendar is light with the highlighted reports being Thursday’s weekly jobless claims and the preliminary manufacturing and service sector PMIs from the S&P Global Group. The focus for the markets will be on the incoming administration’s initial actions. As of Monday afternoon, stock index futures were up in relief that President Trump will hold off imposing China-specific tariffs. Treasuries are not trading, but there is a bias toward yields following European sovereign debt lower. Oil slipped lower on and expected declaration of an Energy Emergency and “Drill, Baby, Drill”.