Would the Fed scatter plot look different compared to the November PCE?

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US government shutdown suspended
US government narrowly avoided downtime after President Joe Biden signed on Saturday, a temporary draft bill on government financing. President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk thwarted the initial negotiated financing plan on Wednesday, sharply criticizing its provisions and in particular insisting on suspending the US debt limit for two years.

Slight cooling of price increases
Headline inflation in the US in November it increased by only 0.1% compared to October.according to the personal consumption expenditure price index. On a yearly basis, prices increased by 2.4%. Both readings were 10 basis points lower than expected. Core inflation was also 10 basis points lower than forecast. PCE is the US Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure.

US stock markets rebounded
On Friday o S&P500 increased by 1.09%, i.e Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1.18% i Nasdaq Composite increased by 1.03%. But all indexes it was out for a week. Pan-European Stoxx 600 fell 0.88% to end the week down 1.9%.. New Nordisk after the Danish pharmaceutical company's publication, shares fell by 17.8%. disappointing trial results for a new weight loss drug.

CEOs see the door
Blue chip companies such as Boeing, Intel AND Starbucksannounced changes in their CEO positions this year. They are not alone. Were 327 CEO departures by November, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm for U.S. public companies. This is the highest level since the company began tracking the data in 2010.

(PRO) Will Rudolph's red nose outshine Santa Claus?
After a difficult few weeks of trading, shares will end December in the red. But Santa Claus Rallytraditionally falling on the last five trading days of the year and the first two days of the following year, it can once again spark seasonal joy. With data going back to 1969, the S&P added an average of 1.3%, according to Stock Trader's Almanac.

Stocks sold out on Wednesday after the Fed indicated it was seeing two quarter-point interest rate cuts in the coming year, fewer than the four previously predicted. “We are moving sideways in terms of 12-month inflation,” he added. he said Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at a press conference.

However, the November PCE index turned out to be colder than expected. “This morning, sticky inflation seemed a little less entrenched,” said Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E-Trade Morgan Stanley.

The Fed stressed Again AND Again that it is “data dependent”. So would the Fed have presented the world with a slightly different scatterplot if it had had the opportunity to look at the PCE data first?

Giving little credence to this line of thinking, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC's Steve Liesman that he hoped the November inflation reading “suggests that several months of strengthening were more of a shock than a change in path.” In other words, the economy is “still on track to get to 2%,” Goolsbee said.

And again, Powell he said in July that the central bank would be “dependent on the data, but not on the data point” in determining when to cut interest rates. Even if the November PCE index did signal a return to a downward trajectory for inflation, next month's data would not cause the dots to shift. Perhaps two more months of cooler reading could be useful?

These questions are rhetorical. Conditional questions have no answers, especially in markets. However, in their vagueness and circular nature, they highlight the fact that trying to time or play the market, especially in volatile times like these, may not be the best idea.

Instead, dig deeper into the fundamentals – earnings, cash flow, future earnings – that drive stocks even as inflation and interest rates rise and fall. Remember the days when inflation reports and Fed meetings were just another day in the markets? (This is not a rhetorical question.)

— CNBC's Jesse Pound, Brian Evans and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.