Last week, the main headlines that are typically allocated to topics like stimulus talk, impeachment and the pandemic took a backseat to extreme buying in stocks like Gamestop and AMC. The high volatility in these companies' stocks resulted in the first negative performing month for the overall stock market since October. Today, February started off, for investors, with much desired gains, bringing a bit of calm with it.
Economic reports from last week came back mostly positive:
•Home Price Index - better than expectation
•Consumer Confidence - better than expectation
•Jobless Claims - better than expectation
•Consumer Sentiment - in-line with expectation
•GDP Q4 - in-line with expectation
•Pending Home Sales - in-line with expectation
•New Home Sales - worse than expectation
In this week's busy economic calendar, investors will be looking for guidance from Manufacturing, Construction, Vehicle Sales, Employment, Jobless Claims and Consumer Credit reports - just a sample of reports that will be released.