Emanuel Stewart - Reliant Home Lending

With the first FOMC minutes of the year, it sets the tone of the potential moves the Federal Reserve will make, with them remaining firm in their current stance of not employing any rate cuts, however given the more recent end of year reports, there is a likelihood that rate cuts will start this year. The last change in rates was in July of last year. The second most important report also being the final PMI (Manufacturing) numbers, which has largely met expectations without any irregularities.

With the New Year, the final week only featured the normal reports of Jobless Claims, S&P Shiller Home Price Index (YoY), and Chicago Business Barometer. All of them will have limited impact compared to the GDP and the Inflation data reports that have already been released.