Amidst a Backdrop of Other Developments, Powell’s Comments Spark a Good Week for Equities

Ordinarily, many investors would have been focused on the retail sector this week. If we consider Thanksgiving to be the official beginning to the holiday shopping season, this year saw a strong opening. Adobe Analytics reported record-breaking Thanksgiving Day online sales ($5.29 billion, up 2.9% YoY) and strong Black Friday sales as well ($9.12 billion, up 2.3% from 2021.) Electronics, toys, and exercise equipment proved particularly popular. Brick and mortar stores also did well, with the National Retail Federation reporting 122.7 million shoppers – a new record, up 17% from 2021 – flocking to stores between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.

But equity and crypto markets around the world opened the week focused on unusually vocal and assertive protests throughout China, led primarily by a cross-section of university students (notably at the elite Tsinghua University, Xi Jinping’s alma mater), urban professionals, and migrant workers unhappy over both China’s seemingly endless lockdowns in its quest for zero COVID and the country’s increasingly strict censorship – especially in response to criticism of the zero-COVID policies. The tipping point appears to have been widely shared (though unconfirmed) reports on social media that 10 deaths from an apartment fire in U...