After Trump announced a national emergency today and government stimulus, stocks soared over 9.0%. However, this only mitigated a portion of the stock market's large losses on the week as major indices still finished down over 8.0%. Interest rates moved higher on the week with the 10-year Treasury yield rising from 0.71% last week to 0.95% today. The price of gold fell over 8.0% to $1,531 an ounce as investors desperate for cash leave the haven metal. The price of crude oil fell nearly 20% on the week to $33.36 a barrel amid the collapse of talks between members of OPEC.

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This Week's Economic Highlights

• The consumer price index (CPI), a measure of retail inflation, rose by 0.1% in February. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy prices, rose by 0.2%. Over the past year, CPI has increased by 2.3% while core CPI increased by 2.1%.
• The producer price index (PPI), a measure of wholesale inflation, sank 0.6% in February, pushing its 12-month rate down to 1.3%. Meanwhile, core PPI only fell by 0.1% in February and has only risen 1.4% over the past year.
• The Federal Reserve announced that it would inject $1.5 trillion of capital into the market to combat treasury-bill liquidity issues as a result of coronavirus concerns.
• Initial unemployment claims slipped by a slight 4,000 to 211,000 for the week ending March 7th.  Meanwhile, the more stable four-week average edged up 1,250 to 214,000. Continuing unemployment claims, which lags initial claims by a week, fell by 11,000 to 1.72 million.

“In bear markets, stocks return to their rightful owners.” – J.P. Morgan