The week 04.04.-08.04.2022

As stocks recovered from a strong start to the week, major U.S. indexes gave back some of the advances made in March. The release of the Fed’s March meeting minutes, wherein policymakers discussed the possibility of raising the FED’s benchmark interest rate by a half-percentage point at a meeting scheduled to begin next month, was at the front AND center. Officials considered raising the rate by half a point at the most recent meeting, but instead approved a quarter-point increase.
With the unemployment rate in the United States at 3.6%, initial applications for unemployment benefits are also at an all-time low. The latest weekly count of unemployment claims fell to 166,000 on Thursday, the lowest weekly figure since 1968 and 5,000 lower than the previous week.
The S&P 500 closed the week in the red with -1.31%. One-Signal Xpert outperformed its benchmark index with -1.1% and One-Signal Xpress ended the week down with -2.33%.