Last Week’s Highlights:

Technology stocks were hit last week, largely due to Wednesday’s congressional testimonies by senior executives of two leading social media companies (Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR)).  Additionally, the Department of Justice said it would meet with state attorneys general on what it called the “stifling” of voices online by social media.  As a result, the tech-heavy NASDAQ fell 2.55% for the week to 7902.54.  August’s solid jobs report was released on Friday, showing that the economy added more than 200,000 jobs and that wages grew at the fastest pace since 2009.  However, this strong report failed to overcome pressure of escalating trade tensions: the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.19% for the week, and the S&P 500 fell 1.03%, to 2871.68.  Amazon.com (AMZN) briefly joined Apple (APPL) last week with a trillion-dollar-plus market capitalization on Tuesday, before slipping back to $995 billion.  The pair are the first two U.S. companies to join the trillion-dollar club.  Congratulations to Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka for winning tennis’s U.S Open – it was his third victory in the New York event and her first.

Looking Ahead:

Monday starts the first day of Rosh Hashanah, and AT&T will host an investor conference to discuss the recent acquisition of Time Warner.  Tuesday marks the 17^th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  On Wednesday, Apple (APPL) hosts its annual Gather Round event, where the company is expected to unveil new iPhone models and a redesigned Apple Watch, among other products.  Wednesday will be a busy day on the economics front, as we’ll hear from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the August producer price index as well as the Federal Reserve, which will release its sixth of eight beige-book surveys for 2018.  Thursday brings the consumer price index report for August and earnings reports from Adobe System (ADBE) and Kroger (KR).  And on Friday, we’ll see more economic news, including the August retail sales report and the Consumer Sentiment survey for September.

Have a wonderful week!