Stocks Down To Start The Shortened Thanksgiving Trading Week  Image: Bigstock Stocks closed lower yesterday to begin the shortened holiday trading week. As you know, stocks will be closed on Thursday 11/24 for Thanksgiving, and will close early on Friday 11/25. Not much news out yesterday in the way of economic reports. Although, there was some news. There are reports that OPEC+ will be discussing an increase in oil production by 500,000 barrels a day at their next meeting on Dec. 4th. Although, the Saudi energy minister denied the reports and instead suggested that a production cut was possible. We shall see. You can expect to hear more about this in the days and weeks leading up to the meeting. Airline travel is expected to surge to the highest level in three years over the Thanksgiving holiday. And traders will also be looking for early shopping stats on Black Friday. In the meantime, we'll get a look at the economy today with the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index. We'll also hear from Cleveland Fed President, Loretta Mester, as she gives opening remarks at the virtual event, Cleveland Fed Conversations on Central Banking. She has been a proponent for slowing down rate hikes, and is in favor of going to 50 basis points in December, rather than 75 basis points that the Fed has raised the last 4 times out. It's unlikely any new ground will be broken at the event. Nonetheless, people will be paying attention to what she has to say. The seasonal tendencies remain in the markets favor. That includes Q4 typically being the best quarter for stocks, and the post-midterm effect which shows that since 1950, stocks have always gone up in the year after midterms, with an average 12-month forward return of 18.6%. And that bodes well for an end-of-year rally. See you tomorrow,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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