In contrast to last week's market performance, the U.S. economic data released was generally solid. Shipping traffic, business lending, mortgage applications, industrial production, retail sales, initial jobless claims, corporate earnings reports, and the consumer price index all came in with solid growth readings. Notably, even the Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) posted a solid and better-than-expected 0.5 gain and marking the third straight month of re-acceleration in the year-over-year growth of the LEI.
The long-awaited events of last week included the mid-term elections and Federal Reserve (Fed) announcing the details of another stimulus program
This week may be the most important of the year for the markets
