Time to Hurry Up and Wait Again

Friday ended up being reasonably pleasant, but mostly uneventful.  Gains were in place from the overnight session on a combination of European economic data and central banker comments.  Geopolitical headlines may have played a role at times, and end-of-week position squaring probably had some impact as well.  None of the above really matters in the bigger picture.  Bonds lost a lot of ground this week as inflation remained higher than the market hoped.  The end.  Now we wait for the next big data with the power to change that bigger picture narrative and that means we'll be waiting for next month's inflation reports.  It's not that 2nd tier reports like next week's Retail Sales or the following week's PCE inflation are incapable of moving the needle, but they'd have a hard time moving it enough to shift a bigger picture trend.