Week of August 23, 2021

Although we saw a nice rally on Friday, stocks pulled back last week with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and S&P 500 posting negative returns of 1.01%, 0.73%, 0.55%, respectively. International stocks were the hardest hit, with the MSCI EAFE down 2.95% and Emerging Markets negative 4.62%.  Bonds on the other hand were positive with the Barclays Aggregate up 0.16%.

Premarket trading was higher Monday morning with futures on the DOW over 150 points and the yield on the 10-year treasury was trading at 1.28, ahead of the Federal Reserve Open Market Symposium.  Investors are looking for clarity on the Fed’s plans and timeline for tapering its bond buying activities.  The event was previously scheduled to be a hybrid of both in person and virtually, however with the recent uptick in COVID cases, they have confirmed it will all be held virtually.

This week the FDA is working on a full approval for the Pfizer vaccine, which could come as early as the end of today.  This would be the first of the vaccines to move from Emergency Use Authorization to a full FDA approval. 

American evacuation efforts continue in Afghanistan, after the US withdrew its military and the Taliban took power over the civilian led government. On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to reporters during her Singapore trip that the primary focus is to evacuate America citizens.