EQUITY MARKETS

US

S&P500 +0.92%(2,675.81); NASDAQ +1.41% (6,936.58); DJIA +1.33% (24,651.74)

This week’s reports:

November’s CPI rose 2.2% y/y versus October’s +2.0% y/y. CPI ex Food & Energy rose 1.7% y/y versus October’s +1.8% y/y.
November’s Retail Sales rose 0.8% from October’s +0.5%. Retail Sales ex Autos jumped 1.0% from October’s +0.4%.
December’s Markit Manufacturing PMI (prelim) rose to 55.0 from November’s 53.9. Services PMI (prelim) fell to 52.4 from November’s 54.5. Composite PMI (prelim) fell to 53.0 from November’s 54.5.
December’s NY Empire State Manufacturing Index fell to 18.0 from November’s 19.4.
November’s Industrial Production rose 0.2% from October’s +1.2%. Capacity Utilization rose to 77.1% from October’s 77.0%.
October’s Business Inventories fell 0.1% from September’s zero change.
Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending December 8^th fell by 11K to 225K. Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending December 1^st fell by 27K to 1,886K.

US stocks rallied to new highs as investors grew increasingly optimistic that Congress would reach a deal to cut corporate taxes.
The US Federal Reserve hiked its key interest-rate, a move that was widely expected, at its December monetary policy meeting, marking the fifth increase in its tightening series starting in December 2015. The rate was raised by 25 basis points to a range of 1.25% to 1.5%. Members of the Federal Open Market Committee raised its GDP estimate for 2018 from 2.1% to 2.5%. The inflation forecast for 2018 got a modest boost, from 1.6% to 1.7%. Fed officials cut their estimates for the unemployment rate to 3.9% in 2018 and 2019 (versus the current 4.1%).