The week in review, the week ahead — Nov. 18, 2022

Published Fri, Nov 18 20224:29 PM ESTUpdated Fri, Nov 18 20224:30 PM EST

Stocks bounced around this week with both bulls and bears finding something to latch onto. But ultimately all the major averages finished a bit lower: The Dow and the S & P 500 each fell roughly 1%, while the Nasdaq dropped 1.8%. Driving the action were several key economic updates, including the producer price index, which encouragingly — for a market in search of a Federal Reserve pivot — came in below expectations. Also in the bulls' corner was Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard comments on Monday that in her view, "it will probably be appropriate soon to move to a slower pace of rate increases." However, serving to counterbalance those remarks St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said on Thursday that rates may need to go as high as 5% to 7% in order to get inflation under control. That's pretty hawkish commentary given the federal funds rate currently stands at 3.75% to 4%. It certainly gave the market some pause in the back half of the week. With earnings season wrapping up, we expect Fed talk and macroeconomic updates to be front and center in the coming weeks. As always, we'll listen to analyst conferences and investor days as these tend to provide more real-time data than what we get from backward-looking economic reports. We hosted our November Monthly Meeting on Thursday, providing an update on our portfolio positions and thinking, and highlighting the 10 core holdings for this market. Looking ahead, we remind members that markets will be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving, and will close early at 1:00 p.m. ET on Friday. Under the hood, Consumer Staples led to the upside followed by Health Care and Utilities, while Consumer Discretionary led to the downside followed by Energy and Real Estate. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar index stabilized at about 106. Gold held around $1,765 per ounce. WTI crude prices pulled back further, falling to around $80 per barrel, while the yield on the 10-year Treasury continues to hover at around 3.8%. Club trades for the week Monday Sold 50 shares of Microsoft (MSFT); Trust owns 325 shares of MSFT, decreasing its weighting in the portfolio to 2.79% from 3.2%. Friday Bought 100 shares of Coterra Energy (CTRA); Trust owns 1,500 shares of CTRA, increasing its weighting to 1.37% from 1.28%. Looking back For cor