The bulls and bears ended up in a stalemate last week. Both sides of the table looked as if they were going to take control at different points, but when all was said and done, neither side had the conviction need to rock the market out of its rut. The S&P 500’s (SPX) (SPY) close of 2052.32 was only 0.27% better than the week-earlier close, and still right in the middle of some major support and resistance. The BigTrends TrendScore (for stocks) is a slightly anemic 56.6 out of a possible 100.0 – a neutral rating currently. That’s 7.2 points better than the score from a week earlier, but still below the 60 threshold we need to surpass to say stocks are in a confirmed uptrend. In fact, broad market charts are closer to slipping into confirmed downtrends than uptrends.

We’ll dissect the upsides and downsides below, as always, after a quick review of last week’s and this week’s economic news. 

Economic Data

Though none of it helped the market move much – higher or lower – we got a pretty big dose of economic news last week. In order of appearance (and limited to just the most important items)… 

Inflation is perking up a little faster than economists were expecting it to. For April, overall consumer inflation grew 0.4%, and core (ex food and energy), inflation grew 0.2%. On an annualized basis, the overall inflation rate now stands at 1.13%. Granted, gasoline prices are still at the low end of their usual scale, but without gas and food, inflation now stands at an annual pace of 2.1%….above the Fed’s target. Consumers are feeling the pain, and the Fed is apt to be more interested in nipping it in the bud earlier rather than trying to reel it in later.

Consumer Price Inflation Chart

Source: Thomson Reuters

It was also a big week for real estate news, and it was decidedly good. Housing starts and building permits both grew, and both outpaced expectations, for last month, and on Friday we learned existing home sales also rolled in higher and much better than expectations.