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Last Friday, the possibility of a March rate cut decreased. The waning optimism sent the yield curve higher and pulled the bond market down.

The Fed voted to hold interest rates steady at 525 – 550 basis points. However, it was Powell’s comments after the meeting that caught the markets’ attention. While there was still a lot of hedging in his statement on Wednesday, his comments stood as a marked shift in tone. This gave quite the gift to both the equity and bond markets.

The Major Markets closed mostly higher last week, although there was some weakness after a number of back-to-back weeks of gains.

The Major Markets saw new life last week after two weeks of losses. For the S&P 500, this marked the largest gains in 51 weeks.

The dominant economic news last week was around the topic of inflation. Retail Sales came in hotter than expected on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Housing Starts came in just slightly below expectations while Building Permits exceeded expectations. This was echoed on Thursday with Existing Home Sales which came in slightly above estimates.

The losses mounted last month as all five indices ended lower for September. The nearly five percent loss in the S&P 500 locked in the greatest monthly loss for the year.

The July CPI results came in at expectation with an increase of 0.2 percent for the month while the year-over-year number for the headline result was slightly favorable with a 3.2 percent result compared to the 3.3 percent expected.