Week of 11/21-11/25 Thanksgiving Holiday leaves mixed signals

Major indexes closed higher on Wednesday before the Holiday, but ended the week on a red note on Friday's early close. Earlier on the week, the minutes from the FED was released which may be interpreted as a potential slowdown on interest rate hikes. This has been the one of the main drivers of the stock market during this year and it is no different for December.

Stocks seem to remain strong at the SPY 400 point level as it approaches the 200 day simple and exponential moving averages. It seems as liquidity is coming into the market, but treasury yields and the dollar have been minimizing this impact by creating resistance. Consumers do not seem to be bothered by the markets economic stress as Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales break online records. According to Adobe's 2021 statistics and projections for these year's dates, almost 50% of sales are coming in from smartphones and an increase of around 80% of spending coming in from "buy now, pay later" deferred payments. The majority of consumers are able to buy their holidays gifts throughout the month of November since companies offer discounts all month to prevent a consumer bottleneck leading to Black Friday. As economic uncertainty and high inflation lingers, investors are left with mixed signals of a high risk/reward bull market leading up to key economic reports for the upcoming week.