Broker Check

Market Recap (January 11 2021)

January 11, 2021
The first week of 2021 saw markets continue to climb. Surprisingly, they grew in spite of several major news stories, including the horrific events of Wednesday. Friday brought a surprise jobs report: the month of December posted a loss of 140,000 jobs; a gain of 50,000 was expected. Unemployment remained steady at 6.7%.
 
COVID-19 numbers remain grim: as of Friday, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. topped 22.1 million, with virus-related deaths reaching beyond 374,000. Worldwide, cases exceed 88.6 million with nearly 2 million deaths.
 
The market seems buoyed by the prospects of additional COVID relief. Investors appeared to be looking at the negative news as short-term economic weakness and are instead focusing on a brighter future, where fiscal spending, monetary stimulus, and successful mass distribution of a vaccine returns our economy to its pre-pandemic path.