Howard Swaylblatt

The US stock market continued to weaken last week and performed much like the previous week, dragging down the overall performance of the index mainly by a single day of sharp falls, and coincidentally on Thursday. Last Thursday, the S & P 500 closed down 1.54%, after closing down 1.45% the previous Thursday. "Black Thursday" took a heavy toll on investors.

Among the well-known companies that announced their second-quarter results last weekOracleAndWalmart IncThe performance and outlook fell short of market expectations, and some geopolitical risks continued to attract investors' attention.

Last Monday, the s & p 500 had its best trading day of the week, closing up 1%, indicating that investors are less worried about geopolitical tensions. The previous Monday, the S & P 500 closed up 0.16%.

It should be said that some risk factors last week caused some market participants to pay close attention, but other researchers and analysts did not do much discussion and interpretation, although the latter were also aware of their existence. it is mainly due to the short-term impact of factors such as the geo-crisis. The latter pays more attention to the fact that both ECB President Draghi and Federal Reserve Chairman Yellen will make speeches at this week's annual meeting of central bank governors in Jackson Hole, which may have a greater impact on the medium and long term. The current focus is on whether the above-mentioned people will issue statements or hints that monetary policy is about to shift.

Last week's economic data were also abundant. Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annualised rate of 1 per cent in the second quarter of this year, when both consumer spending and capital spending rose. Germany's GDP grew 0.6 per cent month-on-quarter last quarter, up 2.1 per cent from a year earlier.EuroGDP in the district grew by 0.6% month-on-month in the last quarter, up 2.1% from the same period last year.

In the US economy, US retail sales rose 0.6 per cent in July from a month earlier, better than the 0.3 per cent decline expected by the market. Retail sales in June were revised to 0.3 per cent month-on-month growth, compared with an initial decline of 0.2 per cent. In July, imports increased 0.1% month-on-month, 1.5% year-on-year, in line with market expectations; July exports increased 0.4% month-on-month, higher than the expected 0.2%, an increase of 0.8% over the same period last year. In August, the national housing market index was 68, higher than the market had expected 65. Industrial output rose 0.2 per cent month-on-month in July, below market expectations of 0.3 per cent. The consumer confidence index was 97.6 in August, higher than expected at 94 and 93.4 in July.

The minutes of the Fed's July monetary policy meeting released last week showed some divisions among Fed members. Some members want to start reducing the balance sheet, while others want to observe the performance of some important economic data, such as whether inflation will gradually approach the 2% target set by the Federal Reserve. This will make the announcement of the "shrinking table" more convincing at the monetary policy meeting held on September 19-20. (the writer is S & PDow JonesSenior Index analyst of Index Company, translated by Zhang Qianhe)