Telemus Weekly Market Review April 26th - April 30th, 2021

April 26 – April 30 Week in Review

The market was given a lot of good news last week, but apparently not good enough to make a difference. The S&P 500 finished basically unchanged, while the Nasdaq, down 0.4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, down 0.5% and the Russell 2000, down 0.2%, closed lower.

The energy, financials, and communication services sectors ended the week solidly higher, while the information technology and health care sectors fell.

Among the positive developments last week Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Tesla exceeded earnings expectations on strong revenue growth and Fed Chair Powell said it wasn't time to start talking about tapering asset purchases, reiterating it'll take substantial further progress until the Fed's employment and inflation goals are reached. The FOMC left the fed funds rate and pace of asset purchases unchanged, as expected.

Also last week advance Q1 GDP increased at a 6.4% annualized rate, personal income surged 21.1% in March on the back of the stimulus checks, and PCE Prices were relatively tame on a year-over-year basis.

Wednesday night President Biden outlined his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan to Congress. Some Senate Democrats were reportedly against the idea of significantly raising capital gains taxes to help fund the plan, but the thinking is some sort of additional infrastructure spending will still get done.

On the interest rate the 2 year Treasury yield closed basically unchanged at 0.16% and the 10 year Treasury yield rose 6 basis points, closing Friday at 1.63%.

In other markets the U.S. Dollar Index rose closing at 91.30, WTI crude closed higher at $63.49 a barrel and gold fell slightly closing at $1,768.80 an ounce.

May 3 – May 7 Economic Calendar