John Hancock: Weekly Market Recap Week Ended May 13th

Persistent inflation

Although April’s Consumer Price Index slipped to an 8.3% annual rate from 8.5% the previous month, there was little relief from the recent spike in inflation. Excluding typically volatile food and gasoline prices, core inflation actually rose 0.6% on a month-to-month basis, compared with a 0.3% gain in March.

Bearish trends

The market’s recent slide put the NASDAQ in bear market territory in March, and the S&P 500 and Dow got closer to that zone with the latest week’s declines. As of Friday’s close, the S&P 500 was down more than 16% from its record high in early January and the Dow was nearly 13% lower. The NASDAQ was off almost 27% from its record set last November.

Return to bonds

Prices of U.S. government bonds mounted a modest comeback, sending the yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond down to around 2.93% on Friday. That marked a big reversal from the previous week, when the 10-year yield rose to 3.13% after eclipsing the 3.00% level for the first time since November 2018.

Buyback record

The value of stock that companies in the S&P 500 repurchased in the 12-month period ended March 31 broke a record, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. As of Friday, buybacks totaled $953 billion so farꟷnot all companies  have reported their first-quarter buyback figuresꟷsurpassing the previous record of $882 billion set in the 12 months ended December 31, 2021.

Source: https://wmr.jhinvestments.com/