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

Published Fri, Nov 18 20224:29 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 corporate earnings, we received quarterly results from TJX Companies (TJX), Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Nvidia (NVDA). In macroeconomic news, on Tuesday the producer price index (PPI) was reported to have grown 0.2% in October, less than the 0.4% expected on the Street. On an annual basis, PPI rose 8%, below the 8.3% estimate and down from an 8.4% increase in September; it was also below the all-time peak of 11.7% hit in March. Excluding food, energy and trade services, the index also rose 0.2% on the month and 5.4% on the year, below expectations of 0.3% and 5.6%, respectively. The October retail sales report on Wednesday showed a 1.3% monthly advance, slightly above the 1.2% estimate. On Thursday, October housing starts recorded a 4.2% monthly decline to a seasonally annual adjusted rate of 1.425 million. Also Thursday, initial jobless claims for the week ending Nov. 12 came in at 222,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the prior week and below expectations of 228,000. And on Friday, existing home sales posted a decline of 5.9% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million units. What's ahead Earnings season is winding down with. We don't have any portfolio companies reporting results next week. Below are some other earnings reports and economic numbers to watch in the week ahead. Monday, Nov. 21 Before the bell: Futu Holdings (FUTU), Jacobs (J), DouYu (DOYU), JM Smucker (SJM), Niu Tech (NIU) After the bell: Agilent (A), Dell Tech (DELL), Zoom Video (ZM), ZTO Express (ZTO) Tuesday, Nov. 22 Before the bell: Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), American Eagle (AEO), Analog Devices (ADI), Baidu (BIDU), Best Buy BBY), Burlington (BURL), Dick's (DKS), Dollar Tree (DLTR), Dycom (DY), Medtronic (MDT), Vipshop (VIPS), Warner Music (WMG) After the bell: Autodesk (ADSK), BP (HPQ), Nordstrom (JWN) Wednesday, Nov. 23 Before the bell: Deere (DE), Kingsoft (KC) After the bell: 8:30 a.m. ET: Initial Jobless Claims 8:30 a.m. ET: Durable Goods Orders 9:45 a.m. ET: Flash PMI 10:00 a.m. ET: New Home Sales 2:00 p.m. ET: FOMC Minutes Thursday, Nov. 24 Markets closed for Thanksgiving (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Lael Brainard, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021.

Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images