SPX: cautious on hourly earnings

There has been sort of a mixed mood on financial markets during the previous week. The week started with a positive sentiment, although it was around the level of 5.931 at one short point. The S&P 500 was moving toward the higher grounds for the rest of the week, reaching the highest weekly level on Thursday, at 6.083. Still, after the NFP data were posted, the market turned to the negative sentiment, dropping strongly within the day, finishing the week at the level 6.025. What was the actual problem with the NFP data? The US economy added 143K new jobs, while the market was expecting to see the figure around 170K. This difference is not so huge, so there was no problem. However, the average hourly earnings were the one to spoil the game on the market, considering that they increased by 0,5% above the market estimate of 0,3%. This was the breaking point for investors, where they anticipate that increased earnings will support increased spending in the future period and consequently higher inflation. A higher inflation means that the Fed will hold interest rates at current levels for a longer period of time, which means that investors need to revalue their positions. And, another drop in the US equity markets just happened.

Despite job developments, which are temporary, the investors continue to be concerned about trade tariffs imposed, or planned to be imposed, by the new US Administration. This brings higher sensitivity to equity markets, which will react to any news to this topic in the future period. So, it might be expected that the volatility will continue.

As for quarterly results of the major companies, Amazon shares dropped around 4% after the results. The company had relatively solid quarterly earrings, however, the push in the price was provoked by providing a relatively low guidance to investors regarding companies expectation for Q1 earnings. They provided only an expectation of 5% to 9% growth in revenues in the first quarter, but analysts are noting that this would be the lowest quarterly growth of the company in its history.