The Friday Wrap Up
In Focus: Consumer Sentiment, Noteworthy Earnings Summary, and a Closer Look at Next Week's Economic Data and Earnings Reports
Note: We are sharing the synopsis of the earnings, and it is not financial advice. We do not discuss our short recommendations/research in the newsletter. To gain access to Unicus Research’s short ideas, email laks@unicusresearch.com.
Please note that the Unicus Newsletter is for informative purposes only and is not financial advice.
The week of February 17, 2025, was mixed with ups and downs on Wall Street.
On February 18, 2025, the S&P 500 increased by 0.2% to finish just above its all-time closing high set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was close to flat, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%.
While the market shrugged off the hotter-than-expected January CPI report and comments from Fed Chair Powell that the central bank would need to do more to get inflation under control, the start of February data and what it revealed about the economy, inflation, and tariff concerns weighed on stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed nearly 748 points (1.69%) today partially due to a mix of weak consumer sentiment data, a decline in UnitedHealth stock, geopolitical/tariff unrest, and most importantly a new coronavirus, named HKU5-CoV-2, has been discovered in China, raising concerns about its potential to cause a pandemic. The virus was identified by a team of researchers led by Shi Zhengli, a virologist known for her work on coronaviruses at a lab in Wuhan. HKU5-CoV-2 is a new lineage of the HKU5 coronavirus, originally identified in the Japanese pipistrelle bat in Hong Kong.
To wrap up this week, we will focus on the weak consumer sentiment, noteworthy earnings summary and a closer look at the economic data coming at us next week: