Author: Martin North

Well, the temperatures in the US are set to tumble driven by a significant arctic blast – leading to perhaps the coldest Christmas Day on record.

And Wall Street came out in sympathy, reversing the anemic gains from the last couple of days, during which the talk of the Santa Rally was again on – though I had my doubts. And again, trade volumes were lower than trend, with10.88 billion shares changing hands, compared with the 11.24 billion average for the last 20 trading days.

And weirdly it was the good news is bad news syndrome, because data again underscores the likelihood the FED will continue to lift rate, into a recession. Indeed, Wall Street’s major averages closed lower on Thursday with technology-heavy NASDAQ’s 2% drop leading losses as investors worried that data showing a resilient economy would lead the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep hiking interest rates for longer than feared.

The final estimate of the third-quarter U.S. gross domestic product was for 3.2% annualized growth, above the previous estimate of 2.9%.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said filings for state unemployment benefits rose to 216,000 last week but were below economist estimates for 222,000.

The job market, meanwhile, remained tight as initial jobless claims fell less than expected last week.

“The labor market remains very tight,” Jefferies said in a note. “We expect that it will soften eventually, but it is starting from a very significant position of strength, and it will take a little while longer for the cracks to form.

And a third report showed the Conference Board’s leading indicator, a gauge of future U.S. economic activity, fell for a ninth straight month in November.

“We’re moving past one of the big worries of 2022 which was the Federal Reserve response to high inflationary pressure to the worry about 2023, which is a recession unfolding in the United States and probably globally too,” said Matt Stucky, senior portfolio manager for equities at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company. “Today’s data, in my mind, kind of confirmed this is the direction we’re heading,” said Stucky, adding that high inflation, a bad economy and tight job market should lead investors “to come to grips with reality that earnings estimates are too high” for 2023.

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