It was a mixed week for the Major Markets as the Nasdaq and Dow Jones ended with minor losses while the S&P 500 and MSCI World indices closed slightly higher. But it was Emerging Markets that held the greatest gains as the index closed .86% higher for the week.
The S&P 500 fell initially on Monday due the November ISM Manufacturing Report which fell 0.2 percent from October to a reading of 48.1. When this index falls below 50, it signifies that the sector is contracting. This now reflects the fourth consecutive month of contraction for the index.
On Tuesday, President Trump appeared pessimistic on the trade front, stating that a deal may not happen until after the 2020 election. This headline weighed on the markets, causing the S&P 500 to trade near the 3070 level early in the trading day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/12/03/trump-says-trade-deal-with-china-could-wait-until-after-election/
As the week continued, the markets returned to trade back near Monday’s closing level. This changed Friday morning when the November BLS Employment Report was released. The Unemployment Rate came in at 3.5%, marking a 50-year low. With the exception of Mining, every sector showed some employment growth. The greatest employment gains occurred in the Services segment. Within that classification, 60,000 jobs were added in healthcare while another 38,000 were added across Professional and Business Services.
The news returned the S&P 500 back above last Friday’s close, giving the blue-chip index a slight gain for the week of 5 full-day trading sessions.
With only two uninterrupted weeks of trade remaining, market participants will be looking to see if a Santa Claus rally might add an exclamation point to the thus far banner year.
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The S&P 500® Index is a capitalization index of 500 stock-designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of stock representing all major industries.
https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-500
The Dow Jones Industrial Average® (The Dow®), is a price-weighted measure of 30 U.S. blue-chip companies. The index covers all industries except transportation and utilities.
https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average
The NASDAQ Composite Index measures all NASDAQ domestic and international based common type stocks listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market. Today the NASDAQ Composite includes over 2,500 companies, more than most other stock market indexes. Because it is so broad-based, the Composite is one of the most widely followed and quoted major market indexes
https://indexes.nasdaqomx.com/Index/Overview/COMP
The MSCI World Index, which is part of The Modern Index Strategy, is a broad global equity benchmark that represents large and mid-cap equity performance across 23 developed markets countries. It covers approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country and MSCI World benchmark does not offer exposure to emerging markets.
The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index is designed to represent the performance of large- and mid-cap securities in 24 Emerging Markets countries of the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. As of December 2017 it had more than 830 constituents and covered approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in each country.
The S&P GSCI Crude Oil index provides investors with a reliable and publicly available benchmark for investment performance in the crude oil market.
https://us.spindices.com/indices
Companies in the S&P 500 Sector Indices are classified based on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS®).
https://us.spindices.com/indices