The economic dam is bursting and the economy is booming. Demand in the US was described as “very, very strong” and “phenomenal” thanks to strong consumer balance sheets and vaccinations. Supply chains are still disrupted and there are significant inflation pressures.
Markets went haywire last week thanks (so the story goes) to some retail traders in a Reddit forum led by a man named Roaring Kitty. It was hard to pay attention to much of anything else in capital markets, but it was also a busy week for earnings. Industrial companies said that demand was “very, very, very strong” and there was an abundance of commentary on price pressures. Jerome Powell isn’t worried though. Game on!
Succinct Summary: Consumer spending remains strong and Black Friday was successful. A third wave of COVID has made the near term outlook worse, but the medium to long term looks much brighter thanks to vaccines. Tech spending continues to outpace overall GDP growth and probably will continue to surge after the pandemic is over. The driver of spending has moved from devices towards data infrastructure and management.
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