November 25, 2022

Markets:

U.S. stock futures were little changed on Friday ahead of a shortened trading session. Markets were closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday and will close at 1 p.m. ET on Friday.

In addition, worries about continued lockdowns in China weighed on markets. The country is ramping up covid restrictions after seeing climbing case counts in recent days. Earlier in the week, China reported its first covid deaths since May.

Wall Street looks set to close out an upbeat holiday-shortened week, after the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting minutes added to expectations that monetary policy tightening may slow down.

Minutes from the Fed’s November meeting signaled that the central bank is seeing progress in its fight against high inflation and is looking to slow the pace of rate hikes.

In other news, major retailers are under intense pressure to deliver on Black Friday after several of them reported a slowdown in sales heading into the do-or-die holiday shopping season.

Retailers and industry watchers have been anticipating a more muted holiday season with sales driven more by higher prices than a huge appetite for goods. The National Retail Federation is predicting a 6% to 8% increase in sales, including the boost from nearly record-high levels of inflation.

Portfolio:

We enter this shortned holiday trading session holding positions in UMC, M, AR, and TGLS. Strong week thus far and we would love to try and book a profit today if possible. We can't imagine anything triggering today as volume will be extremely low. Technically, we have a large number of sectors and indivuals names looking to breakout but today would be no day to chase these names. We would much rather wait for volume to return on Monday and evaluate trade data and price activity then. But, be ready today. As stated earlier, we could see us trying to take an early profit today. We hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving for those in the U.S. and hope everyone is enjoying the break to recharge for the final monster push to close out 2022.