While Thanksgiving was last week, we have lots to be thankful for in this week\u2019s headlines\u00a0–\u00a0with\u00a0the U.S. consumer stronger than ever and U.S GDP for Q3 revised higher. Get the details in this edition of Steady Investor\u2019s Week\u2026<\/p>\n
Record Breaking Sales \u2013 <\/strong>the U.S. consumer is stronger than ever, and that\u2019s what matters most to economic growth. The consumer makes up just about two-thirds of the economy. Consumer strength showed in the famed Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days, as Black Friday registered a record $3.34 billion and Cyber Monday clocked in at $3.45 billion, according to Adobe Digital Insights. This represents a little over 12% year over year growth, which is a significant jump. It handily topped estimates for 9.4% growth.<\/p>\n U.S. GDP Revised Higher \u2013 <\/strong>Good news came in many forms this week, as U.S. GDP figures for Q3 were revised higher. The final estimate for growth came in at 3.2% for Q3, which is a big number relative to the average growth rate we\u2019ve seen in this expansion. According to the Commerce Department, U.S. corporations benefited greatly from the broad-based growth, with after-tax earnings rising 5.2% in the quarter. The uptick in earnings for corporations marks the first year over year increase since 2014 (the Energy drag has finally faded), and also marks the strongest growth since Q4 of 2012.<\/p>\n Oil Prices Jump on OPEC Announcement \u2013 <\/strong>oil prices and oil\/energy stocks saw a nice bump this week as OPEC surprised traders with an announcement to cut production. After a successful meeting in Vienna, it was announced that Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia were all in agreement about the cuts, which sent oil prices soaring some 12% to over $50 \/ barrel. It has been eight years since OPEC agreed to production cuts, and the disagreements between the three major players have been a major hurdle. Don\u2019t go buying oil stocks just yet, though. An agreement is different than a production cut, so it remains to be seen whether OPEC countries follow through. What\u2019s more, energy friendly policies under the Trump Administration may boost supply, which could keep downward pressure on prices.<\/p>\n Solid Manufacturing Numbers Across the World \u2013 <\/strong>It was a good month for manufacturing across the world, perhaps in a sign that global growth is stabilizing as the U.S. recovers from the energy drag and European growth gets a bump. The most common measure of manufacturing activity, the Purchasing Managers\u2019 Index (PMI), stayed above 50 for China, the Eurozone, and the U.K. China saw a government-induced infrastructure buildout with PMI holding up at 51.7, the Eurozone remained strong at 53.7, and the U.K. remained expansionary at 53.4 (though that marks a cool off from 54.2 in October).<\/p>\n Big Trouble in Little South Korea \u2013 <\/strong>the political situation has turned negative in South Korea, as President Park Geun-hye remains embroiled in a corruption scandal. The democratically elected leader and ally to the United States has now asked parliament to find a way for her to relinquish power and shorten her term, but this feels like an effort to avoid being impeached and embarrassed on the global stage.<\/p>\n While the headlines this week\u2019s sung a positive tune, many investors are still wondering what to expect from the market as the U.S. prepares for Trump to take office. To give you a deeper look into the current state of the market and what you can expect in 2017, download our Stock Market Outlook report by clicking on the link below:<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While Thanksgiving was last week, we have lots to be thankful for in this week\u2019s headlines\u00a0–\u00a0with\u00a0the U.S. consumer stronger than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-private-client-group","category-steady-investors-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11111,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3604\/revisions\/11111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}