The present–or more precisely the very recent past–didn’t look so good this morning, January 15. U.S. retail sales declined by 0.7% in December and the Commerce Department revised November to a drop of 1.4%. The unadjusted blue of sales rose by just 0.6% year over year in 2020. That’s the smallest gain in 11 years.
Nobody expected the December retail sales numbers to be anything other than grim, however, and by themselves these figures wouldn’t have been enough to dent stock prices. The market has a strong recent history of looking past any negative news in the present because with the roll out of coronavirus vaccines with future looks so promising.
But the future also disappointed today.
First, with vaccinations already lagging the Trump administration “clarified” that there was no reserve vaccine in stock and that hopes that the federal government would be able to release extra doses to the states from a reserve being held for second doses for those who had already received a first dose were completely unfounded. State and city officials were flabbergasted that they would not be receiving any additional doses above recent allocations after having been encouraged by Washington to expand the categories of Americans eligible for vaccination now. New York City, for exampled, which expanded eligibility this week to include residents over 65 at federal urging, warned that it would run out of vaccine next week.
And second, as expected, Republicans pushed back against the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan proposed yesterday by President-elect Joe Biden. At the best, Wall Street concluded, it would take longer to get the relief money through Congress. At the worse, Biden would have to scale down the package. And maybe it wouldn’t pass at all.
The combination of stinky present and disappointing future took the Standard & Poor’s 500 down 0.72% at the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.57%. The NASDAQ Composite was lower by 0.87% and the NASDAQ 100 finished down 0.73%. The small cap Russell 2000 fell 1.52%. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) ended down 1.41%.
