A “Santa Rally” Chart for Clients
What’s in Today’s Report:
- An Interesting Chart to Show Clients: Santa Tends to Arrive in the Second Half of December
- Economic Data Takeaways: November BLS, October Retail Sales, & December Flash PMIs
Futures are higher as cooler-than-anticipated inflation data in Europe is offsetting an uptick in geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West as leaders jawbone about ceasefire negotiation details.
Economically, Eurozone CPI cooled to 2.1% vs. (E) 2.4% while U.K. CPI fell to 3.2% vs. (E) 3.4%, both of which supported dovish money flows overnight.
Looking into today’s session, we will get another look at the health of the U.S. consumer ahead of the bell with the November Retail Sales report due to be released (E: 0.2%) while data on Business Inventories (E: 0.2%) will also be reported. The former will be the key economic focus and investors will be looking for a healthy, “Goldilocks” print to support a relief rally.
The Treasury will hold a 4-Month Bill auction at 11:30 a.m. ET and a 20-Yr Bond auction at 1:00 p.m. ET, and the stronger the demand measures are in each, the better for stocks and bonds today.
There are also three notable Fed speakers today: Waller (8:30 a.m. ET), Williams (9:05 a.m. ET), and Bostic (12:30 p.m. ET), and the more dovish their collective tone is, the better for risk assets.
Finally, there are some late season earnings still trickling in with quarterly reports due from JBL ($2.27), GIS ($1.02), TTC ($0.86), and MU ($3.67) today. Obviously, weak earnings could fuel a further decline in equities today while strong results would be well received.
