The S&P/ASX 200 (ASX: XJO) dropped 0.2% over the five days while all three US benchmarks also finished lower.
Here are my three key investor takeaways from the week.
How healthy is the real economy?
There was no end to the superlatives during the week as both domestic employment and US inflation results left economists ‘stunned’.
Starting at home, Australian unemployment jumped significantly from 4.6% to 5.2% with close to 50,000 people losing their jobs, the complete opposite of the predicted 50,000 job gains expected by leading economists.
Whilst the massive miss was blamed on the timing of the survey, it highlights a growing issue facing policymakers and the economy in general, being how healthy is the ‘real economy’ and could it withstand the rate hikes many are predicting.
The story is similar to the US, where inflation printed at close to 1% in October, charting an annual rate of 6.2%, the largest in several decades.
Inflation remains in focus
There are clearly many stories at play, with used cars, fuel, property prices and now groceries adding to the price increases.
Central banks continue to view this as ’transitory’ with the missing piece being how long transitory actually lasts.
Supply chain issues continue to dog the hopes of any sustained recovery with demand still well below pre-pandemic levels.
Crypto nears mainstream
The cryptocurrency sector is knocking on the door of the mainstream, with a number of related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) listing on the Australian market.
At this point, regulators have a hold on any products that track the daily traded price of Bitcoin or other digital currencies.
But this hasn’t stopped a range of associated products including the BetaShares Crypto Innovators ETF (ASX: CRYP) and Bitcoin futures via the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (NYSE: BITO) from attracting record levels of capital.