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Image credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer
The biggest market moving story for the S&P 500 (Index: SPX) in the final full trading week of September 2024 continued to be the stimulus measures the Chinese government will use to boost China’s troubled economy. That story similar to what played out last week, with one key difference. Instead of leaving it up to speculation for what they would do, China’s government followed through and rolled out several measures to juice the country’s economy.That boosted stock prices, especially in China and throughout Asia, which saw their best week since 2008. But lots of U.S. companies will benefit from increased economic activity in China, which is why the S&P 500 climbed along with news of China’s stimulus rollout on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The index ended the week up 0.6% from the previous week at 5,738.17. The S&P even a new record high of 5,745.37 on Thursday before retreating a little over 0.1% to close the week.That small increase was enough to keep the index’ trajectory tracking along in the upper portion of the redzone forecast range indicated in the latest update of the alternative futures chart. 
The CME Group’s FedWatch Tool projects more rate cuts ahead. It projects better than even odds of another half point rate cut on 7 November 2024, followed by a continuing series of 0.25%-0.50% rate cuts at approximate six-to-12-week intervals well into 2025.The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tool’s projection of the real GDP growth rate for the current quarter of 2024-Q3 rose to +3.1% from the previous week’s forecast of +2.9% growth.More By This Author:US New Home Market Muted in August 2024
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