Last week, President Trump said the United States and China had reached a “substantial, phase-one” agreement to resolve the trade war between the economic giants. Essentially, the United States agreed to hold off on the imposition of additional tariffs on Chinese imports, while China agreed to ramp up the purchase of U.S. agricultural products. Buoyed by the prospects of a further trade accord, investors dove into the market, sending each of the indexes listed here higher by the close of trading last week. Both the Dow and Nasdaq rose by almost 1.0%, followed by the Russell 2000 and the S&P 500. However, the biggest mover was the Global Dow, which surged almost 2.0%. With money moving to stocks, gold and 10-year Treasuries saw their respective prices slip.
Oil prices climbed last week, closing at $54.77 per barrel by late Friday afternoon, up from the prior week’s price of $53.01. The price of gold (COMEX) fell last week, closing at $1,491.70 by late Friday afternoon, down from the prior week’s price of $1,510.30. The national average retail regular gasoline price was $2.645 per gallon on October 7, 2019, $0.003 more than the prior week’s price but $0.258 less than a year ago. Click here for more: Winthrop Partners Weekly Update 10-14-19