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Major Stock Indexes Finish Holiday-Shortened Week Mixed
Equity markets ended the holiday-shortened week mixed as investors continued to digest news around tariffs and comments made by Fed Chair Powell about future rate adjustments. Overall, for the week, global equities (represented by the MSCI All Country World Index) finished up 0.38% while domestic stocks (represented by the S&P 500 Index) were down -1.49%.
Strength of the US Dollar
One of the data inputs we look at for our weighting of international stocks is the strength of the US dollar. The dollar continues to slide, falling for the sixth week out of the past seven. While it’s still such a short time period, it makes sense why you’ve started to hear more headlines pushing for owning foreign equities.
U.S. Consumer Spending
Despite some recent surveys showing a decline in consumer sentiment, U.S. retailers posted a bigger-than-expected increase in sales for March. This includes data for retail sales excluding autos. All positive signs that U.S. consumer spending remains strong.
U.S. Small-Cap Stocks
One bright spot in the domestic market was in U.S. small-cap stocks that outperformed their domestic peers. While the large-cap indices were negative last week. We saw small caps (represented by the Russell 2000) finish positive over 1%.
As Always
I’d like to leave you with the final line we’ve used since we started these commentaries back at the very height of market volatility in March 2020. Always remember that we create financial/investment plans not for the easy times, but to prepare for the tough ones.
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