The minutes of the November meeting of the Federal Reserve are expected to help shape the upcoming week on Wall Street, which is shortened due to the holidays.
U.S. stock and bond markets will be closed Thursday, Nov. 24, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Also, on Black Friday, trading will close early.
The report on the discussions at the U.S. central bank meeting earlier this month, due out Wednesday, will be the highlight of the economic calendar in the coming days. The earnings calendar will also be relatively sparse as the third quarter reports come to a close.
Stocks posted a loss last week despite a modest gain on Friday after hawkish statements from the Federal Reserve dampened optimism.
The S&P 500 fell 0.7% last week:
Nasdaq Composite lost about 1.6% as central bank members said they intend to continue aggressive policy tightening.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average remained virtually unchanged over the week:
Minutes from the latest meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) show that officials are planning a half-point rate hike at their December meeting.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference that he and his colleagues have some avenues to mitigate rising prices, acknowledging that the inflation picture has become more complex.
An aggressive increase in interest rates could lead to a recession in the U.S. economy, and Fed officials have recently become more open about this risk.
Goldman Sachs raised its Fed rate forecast to a range of 5% to 5.25%, adding another 25 basis point hike in May, noting that the investment bank's exposure to its Fed outlook has turned up.
"Inflation is likely to remain uncomfortably high for a while, and this could put pressure on the FOMC to deliver a longer string of small hikes next year," economists led by Jan Hatzius said.
Wall Street is nearing the end of its reporting season, but the results from Dell (DELL), J.M. Smucker (SJM), Zoom Video (ZM) and Dollar Tree (DLTR) will be some of the key corporate updates in the report.
According to FactSet Research, fewer companies are expressing recession fears in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.
Of the S&P 500 companies that reported earnings between Sept. 15 and Nov. 16, 26% fewer companies mentioned the term "recession," with 179 mentioning the word, compared with 242 in the reporting period for the most recent quarter.
Still, according to FactSet, this quarter still ranks third among companies stressing fears of a potential economic downturn, at least since 2010.
