S&P 500 Logs Weekly Loss As Investors Digest Latest Fed Chair Commentary – SPDR S&P 500 (ARCA:SPY)

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) is down 0.43% this week as fourth-quarter earnings continue to disappoint.

On Friday, the University of Michigan reported that US consumer sentiment rose 2.3% on a monthly basis in February and is now up 5.7% year-on-year. The median consumer inflation rate for the coming year also rose to 4.2% in February from 3.9% in January.

In a speech to the Economic Club of Washington on Tuesday, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said US disinflation “has begun” but reiterated that it will take time for the price environment to fully normalize.

“For example, if we continue to get strong jobs reports or higher inflation reports, we may well have to do more and raise rates more than what’s priced in,” Powell said.

Google parent company shares Alphabet, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) traded lower this week after its artificial intelligence chatbot bard failed to impress Wall Street at Google’s AI event on Wednesday. Investors are worried about the potential impact OpenAI‘S ChatGPT could have Google’s search business now that ChatGPT has been integrated into that microsoft corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) Am search engine.

On his earnings call on Wednesday Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) CEO Bob Iger announced a bold restructuring plan that will make ESPN its own business unit. The plan also calls for $5.5 billion in cost cuts, 7,000 layoffs and even a possible sale of Disney’s 66% stake in the video-streaming service Hello.

Discontinued: Shares of popular ridesharing opportunities LYFT Inc (NASDAQ:LYFT) is down nearly 40% this week after the company reported an unexpected fourth-quarter profit loss and released a weak first-quarter guidance.

In the coming week, investors will receive further quarterly reports from Coca Cola Co (NYSE:KO) on Tuesday and Energy Transfer LT (NYSE:LT), Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE:GOLD) and Cisco Systems Inc (NASDAQ:CSCO) on Wednesday.

According to FactSet, analysts cut their average earnings estimates for the S&P 500 for the first quarter by 3.3% year-to-date.

Economic numbers: Investors will get key economic updates on Tuesday when the US Department of Labor releases its January CPI and on Wednesday when the US Census Bureau releases its January Retail Sales report.

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