Stocks Soar Through January; Big Week Upcoming

Stocks staged their best cumulative effort of the new year, as January equity returns continued to explode through the final full week of trading in the United States.

Making the gains all the more impressive is the fact that the month has seen only 18 out of a possible 20 trading days, due to the New Year and MLK holidays falling on Mondays. Three more sessions to start the new week will conclude January trading.

Stocks have been the major story of the year thus far, along with the continued decline of the US dollar against other major currencies, especially the Yen, Euro and British Pound.

President Donald J. Trump returned from Davos over the weekend, preparing for his first State of the Unions address to congress on Tuesday night.

Also of note this week is the FOMC policy rate meeting of the Federal Reserve. While the Fed is not expected to raise key interest rates at this meeting, there's general impetus for a planned rate hike at the March meeting. The FOMC meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 30 and 31. The March meeting is March 20-21.

The week concludes with the January Non-farm Payroll release by the BLS on Friday, Feb. 2. The data release includes publication changes related to the annual sample review and the conversion to NAICS 2017.. Expectations will be high, given the explosive nature of the stock market and recent touting of strong economic growth by President Trump.

At the Close, Friday, January 26, 2018:
Dow: 26,616.71, +223.92 (+0.85%)
NASDAQ: 7,505.77, +94.61 (+1.28%)
S&P 500: 2,872.87, +33.62 (+1.18%)
NYSE Composite: 13,637.02, +124.36 (+0.92%)

For the Week:
Dow: +544.99 (+2.09%)
NASDAQ: +169.39 (+2.31%)
S&P 500: +62.57 (+2.23%)
NYSE Composite: +252.56 (+1.89%)