<p>Good morning, all! Welcome back to another market recap for the last week, 9/23 to 9/27. Most of the larger headlines hit later in the week, including jobless claims, PCE numbers and the Chinese stimulus. As always, I’ll go over a bit of technical analysis too!</p><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://beansandbucks.substack.com/subscribe"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p><strong>Jobless Claims:</strong></p><p>I feel like this topic is brought up every week, but it is an important one. With rates being cut, it is a topic of concern that the labor market may stall out too much. However, on Thursday, jobless claims came in weak for the week ending September 21st at 218,000 vs the forecasted 225,000 claims. This reading is a 4-month low for jobless claims. Further showing evidence of the robust labor market and ability to withstand the Federal government’s interest rate cuts. All good news for the market going forward.</p><p><strong>Chinese Stimulus:</strong></p><p>A Chinese stimulus package has been in the works for what feels like years. On Thursday we finally got some strong news that they are finally moving forward with a stimulus package and rolled out some measures on what will be affected. This stimulus package will offer more funding for struggling businesses and cut interest rates by 50bps. US markets advanced on this news before the end of the week. Further, over the weekend, additional measures were released including cutting mortgage rates on both existing and future mortgages. Shanghai gained 8.06% Monday on this news with the Japanese Hang Seng following for 2.43%. All eyes on the US to see if these additional measures push the market higher.</p><p><strong>PCE Data Release:</strong></p><p>On Friday, we received data on the PCE report, or Personal Consumption Expenditures, which is one of the Fed’s favorite inflation gauges. This report measures the cost and changes of goods and services based on what businesses are charging and what is actually affecting the American public. PCE rose 0.1% for the month of August, putting the year over year inflation rate at 2.2%. Core results, which exclude volatile food and energy, rose 0.2% month over month and 2.7% year over year. Inflation is all quiet, which is great news for investors. No surprises to the upside to strike fear and even more evidence that inflation is moving in the right direction and the Fed was correct in its decision to lower rates.</p><p><strong>Small-Caps Rise:</strong></p><p>Along with the rest of the market, small caps also rejoiced on the lowering of interest rates. This is most important to small caps because these smaller companies rely on loans for their business expenses to get it off the ground. By lowering rates, these loans become cheaper and more accessible, allowing smaller businesses the chance to create better services / products and bring in more profits.</p><p><strong>Technical Analysis:</strong></p><p>This was already a longer market recap, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. We broke out a bit higher last week but was soon knocked back down on barely higher volume. The market is still in a consolidation mode, although we could see that breakout being retested today to gain strength to move higher. Today’s close could be indicative of the rest of the week. Let’s see if the S&P500 can go for that 5,800 break.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F41727504-667c-431e-b420-c719e4c9ced3_785x694.png" target="_blank"><div class="image2-inset"><source type="image/webp" /><img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="694" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F41727504-667c-431e-b420-c719e4c9ced3_785x694.png" title="" width="785" /><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container restack-image"><svg class="lucide lucide-refresh-cw" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><path d="M3 12a9 9 0 0 1 9-9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1 6.74 2.74L21 8"></path><path d="M21 3v5h-5"></path><path d="M21 12a9 9 0 0 1-9 9 9.75 9.75 0 0 1-6.74-2.74L3 16"></path><path d="M8 16H3v5"></path></svg></div><div class="pencraft pc-reset icon-container view-image"><svg class="lucide lucide-maximize2" fill="none" height="20" stroke="currentColor" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" stroke-width="2" viewBox="0 0 24 24" width="20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></div></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>That will do it for the market recap for this week! Looking forward, this Thursday we will jump into Taxable Brokerages and how to invest beyond traditional retirement accounts.</p><p>Thank you for reading and subscribing and I will be back on Thursday!</p><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://beansandbucks.substack.com/subscribe"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><p>Prosperously,</p><p>Jim</p>