For all the action that culminated until Friday last week, we could see a lot of activity in the broader markets as usual here last week.

In our weekly reporting of Stock Market News, we begin with a look at the broader markets, and then some of those headline news that drove price action last week quite a bit and how that may or may not have impacted some sector rotation that’s continuing to shape up. 

We  will also take a look at some of these earnings releases and how that has impacted the primary driver of stocks that had the biggest moves for the upside and the downside. 

IMPACTING HEADLINES that Drew Stock Market News

Last week we did get a word that Consumer Confidence dropped to a Nine month low as a result of high inflation, which finally consumers had to feel the Pinch. The inflation figures did come out earlier during the week and the high inflation is what the Federal Reserve particularly wants to control by reducing  spending and thereby see the economy being slowed down. The US economy did get good orders for durable goods earlier in the week but later that also showed a slowing down by way of business Investments.

First quarter GDP information just came out last week and also showed that the economy is slowing.  The PCE or Personal Consumption Expenses for March. Its this highly relevant inflationary number that the Federal Reserve is wanting to get lowered so that it will in fact point to the ultimate inflation. This PCE is potenti ally going lower but it did not show a lot in the way of a drop. It declined though, but very nominally. This core PCE number that the FED takes a close look at excludes Energy and the Food sector and both these sectors are still elevated. Therefore this PCE number that is available is a mix of sectors however, at the end of the day,  it’s still quite high.

THE FEDERAL FOMC MEET THAT WILL BE THIS WEEK

This  week is going to be important by way of Economic and investors thoughts on what may take place this week.  it’s all about the Federal Reserves meeting or  their FOMC meeting on Wednesday. In this meeting we will hear about the  FED’s decision on their Interest rate hike. Through Federal Chairman Powell’s speech later we will be on the lookout to hear about any potential future monetary policy shifts. Many investors are hoping that this months quarter point expected rate hike will be the last one but that is highly relevant.

This week we will also get Employment data for April and this is another key metric in all of this inflation interest rate mix that’s due to be out this week.

let’s go ahead and take a look at the broader markets that was, last week.

Broad Market Overview: S&P 500 ($SPX) – Last Week Stock Market News

The S&P ended the week up a little more than a half of a percent for the week. In fact amongst most of the Mega cap Fang stocks, several of them came out with very robust numbers. Amongst them were Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platform. These stocks did display a nice late week Rally and there was also lots of constructive price action shaping up beyond that simply because we did close the last week back Above the 10 day simple moving average and also the RSI above 50 trending higher.

The Stochastics – S&P 500

A look at the stochastics showed that it is too has turned positive. In a net net analysis we find that the otherwise prevailing downtrend has been reversed by last week trading. We have once again regained the uptrend with a move back above the moving average and Positive Momentum Indicators.

The S&P this week rallied into the 4200 level and this level is really critical because it is the upside resistance. The last time the S&P rallied into this resistance level was in January and February but, since then the S&P has been unable to break above that level although there was a brief break up here during that July rally. Many investors are hoping that the third any rally that happens in future  may well turn out to be good but, we do want to get back above that 4200 level and retain a presence above that. That’s going to be certainly near-term very instrumental in guiding investors confidence in this market. 

The DOW and its Outperformers

For the month of April which is ending Dow was the top performer. It was up 2.3 percent relative to the S&P that was up 1.2 percent and the NASDAQ was down about 0.2 percent. The DOW Outperformers were McDonald’s (MCD), Procter & Gamble (PG), Coca Cola (KO).

Whilst discussing relative Outperformance, MacDonalds had been on a space breakout in late March and continued into an uptrend. The company posted Superior earnings this week. They are really going all out aggressive with their social media and their loyalty programs and so on. MacDonalds displayed huge growth numbers remaining in a nice uptrend.

Talking about Procter Gamble in response to strong earnings, there was this last week Gap up and a nice rally back and fill formation beyond that Gap up. It is this move that illustrates the mood into Staples sector. Coca-Cola another Staples stock displayed very nice uptrend.

Microsoft (MSFT), Merck (MRK), Walmart (WMT), Honeywell (HON) were also the the ones who added to the Dow performance. We could also see Walmart delivering well and amongst the suggested Holdings to consider for relative performance. We may have about 12 or 13 more stock names to discuss like these. The relative outperformers based on their earnings related are Honeywell,,Travelers (TRV), Salesforce (CRM), Intel (INTC), Caterpillar (CAT)

Health Care being in a nice uptrend, US Medical Devices ETF (IHI), is one of the ETFs that could be worth for an investor to get his arms around. This could be also true for Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV).

Gold stocks were flat for last week but they’re holding in here with positive momentum. 

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