Short Week Starts With Good News

Nov. 23, 2020 - Traders will only have about 70% of the normal trading hours this week, but there's a good chance that there will be less than 70% of the normal attention paid to markets this week.

Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that falls in the middle of the week, and unlike Independence Day and Christmas, which are preceeded by half-days to accomodate travel, Thanksgiving's accompanying half day comes on Friday.

In normal times, this has the effect of making Friday's session pretty perfunctory and trading volume tends to be pretty light Wednesday afternoon as people get a head start on the holiday.

Of course, this is 2020, so not exactly normal times. That said, we don't expect people who aren't traveling for the holiday to necessarily be trading up until the close on Wednesday. Likewise, the chances of Friday being among the lightest volume days of the year remain high.

Wednesday's economic calendar is busy, largely the results of moving reports that would normally be scheduled for Thursday and Friday. That said, unless there's a big surprise in new unemployment claims or personal income and spending data, it doesn't seem like much of Wednesday's data dump will have an outsized impact on the market.

Based on Monday's session, which got separate boosts from another positive vaccine trial, and President-elect Joe Biden's announcement of Janet Yellen as his Treasury Secretary, the market could easily drift higher through the end of the week.

Yellen was among a small number of people who had been identified as a likely choice for the Treasury job, so it's not as if the pick was a surprise. The market was likely reaction to the perception that Yellen, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will be able to work well together to help the economy recover from the effects of the pandemic.

Economic Events this Week

Tuesday

• 10:00 a.m. - Consumer Confidence

Wednesday

• 8:30 a.m. - Second Estimate Q3 GDP
• 8:30 a.m. - Durable Goods Orders
• 8:30 a.m. - Initial Unemployment Claims
• 10:00 a.m. - New Home Sales
• 10:00 a.m. - Personal Income and Spending
• 10:00 a.m. - PCE Prices
• 2:00 9.m. - FOMC Minutes

Thursday

• Market Closed

Friday

• 1:00 p.m. - Market Closes Early

Earnings Reports this Week

Tuesday:

Before the bell: ANF, ADI, PLAN, BBY, BURL, CHS, DKS, DLTR, EV, GES, HRL, SJM, MDT, TIF, After the bell: AEO, ADSK, DELL, GPS, HPW, JWN, PSTG, VMW

Wednesday:

Before the bell: ATHM, DE, FRO, JKS, SINA, WB

Sector and Industry Sentiment

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