Below is the usual weekly summation, the positives being that the fundamentals like profits, home sales and durable goods orders are all quite solid.  The negative goes without saying.  We've had the worst week since 2008, we've lost Mattis and we're having a government shutdown.  What a Christmas!  And speaking of Christmas, since you'll all be reading this on Christmas Eve, I'm sure everyone has better things to do than reading bonus material on Christmas Eve so I'm skipping it this time.  Also, I wasn't really able to find anything that was all that interesting.  Hope you've all finished your shopping and let's see how trading goes on Christmas Eve. 

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 12.21.18

December 21, 2018 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending December 21st, 2018

Positives:

1. Corporate profits increase 6.1% y/o/y, up from previous 5.9% rise.
2. Existing home sales rose 1.9% m/o/m, up from previous 1.4% rise.
3. Durable goods orders rose 0.8% m/o/m, up from prior -4.3%.
4. Housing starts rose to 1.256M in November, above exp 1.221M
5. Home mortgage apps fell (seas adj) 7.0%, from prior 3.0% rise.
6. Same store sales rose 7.1% w/o/w, greater than previous 6.6% rise.

Negatives:

1. Markets finish worst week in a decade following Federal Reserve Rate Hike + White House disarray;
2. In a stunning rebuke to President Trump over foreign policy, the U.S. Secretary of Defense General Mattis resigns;
3. Government shutdown likely to cause more all around headaches;
4. Housing market index falls 4 points in December.
5. Current account deficit deepened to -124.8B in Q3.
6. Jobless claims rose 8k w/o/w, from 206k to 214k.
7. Empire state mfg index came in at 10.9, lower than the expected 21.0.; Philly fed report fell 3.5 points in December, from 12.9 to 9.4.