The Markets (as of market close November 22, 2019)
The market’s run of weekly gains ended last week as each of the benchmark indexes listed here lost value. Once again, trade concerns may have prompted investors to pull back from stocks. News last Wednesday of new demands from both the United States and China may delay completion of “phase one” of the trade deal until after the new year. In addition, China threatened “strong countermeasures” if President Trump signed a bill supporting human rights in Hong Kong, following the passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act by the Senate. As of last Friday, the president had not signed the bill.
By the close of the week, the large caps of the Dow and S&P 500 each fell by less than 0.5%, while the tech stocks of the Nasdaq dropped a quarter of a percent. The small caps of the Russell 2000 lost the most by week’s end, but still only a modest 0.47%.
Oil prices fell slightly last week, closing at $57.89 per barrel by late Friday afternoon, down from the prior week’s price of $57.93. The price of gold (COMEX) dropped last week, closing at $1,462.50 by late Friday afternoon, down from the prior week’s price of $1,468.70. The national average retail regular gasoline price was $2.592 per gallon on November 18, 2019, $0.023 less than the prior week’s price and $0.019 less than a year ago.Winthrop Partners Weekly Update 11-25-19