Stocks Up Yesterday, Busy Week Of Economic Reports, PCE Inflation Index On Friday  Image: Shutterstock Stocks closed higher yesterday, and finished near their highs of the day. After several down weeks, the markets got started on the right foot this week. Just 4 more trading days left before we can close the books on a tough September month. But there's bound to be some excitement on the last day as we'll get the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index on Friday, 9/29. That's the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. After the Fed last week expressed the likelihood of one more rate hike this year, given the stickiness of inflation, along with fewer rate cuts next year, all eyes will be on Friday's report. But the whole week will be busy with economic reports. Yesterday's Chicago Fed National Activity Index slipped to -0.16 vs. last month's 0.07 and views for 0.15. The 3-month average came in at -0.14, which was slightly better than last month's 3-month pace of -0.15. And the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey showed the General Activity Index declined to -18.1 vs. last month's -17.2 and views for -12.0. The Production Index, however, improved to 7.9 vs. last month's -11.2. Today we'll get the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, the FHFA House Price Index, New Home Sales, the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index, and Consumer Confidence. Today also marks day 12 of the autoworkers strike. The UAW union expanded their targeted work stoppage at GM and Stellantis last week, but spared further work disruption at Ford as progress was cited at those talks. But if talks fail to produce further progress, Ford could find themselves in the same boat as GM and Stellantis as the strike will widen for them as well. We also have just 5 more days for Congress to get a budget deal done by the end of the month to avoid a government shutdown. There's still time for the market to turn things around by month's end. But regardless of how it ends, the odds of a bullish rest of the year look considerably better. History shows if the market is up more than 10% thru July, and August is down, the remainder of the year is up 100% of the time with an average gain of 9.9% (median of 8.7%). Those are great odds. And could make for an explosive Q4. See you tomorrow,  Kevin Matras
Executive Vice President, Zacks Investment Research | 
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