S&P 500 closed Wednday 2/18 at 6881, up 0.6% # US stocks are off to worst start versus the global market since 1995 [View all]

Last edited Wed Feb 18, 2026, 10:51 PM - Edit history (251)

Not room enough in the headline: Trump administration slams New York Fed study that says US consumers bear the cost of tariffs

In the future I will only be doing these twice a week: Tuesday and Friday, unless it's really interesting.

10 Year TREASURY YIELD 4.08% on Feb 18, up 0.03 for the day. It was 4.27% on Feb 3. It was 4.19% on Friday 12/12 (It local-bottomed out at 3.95% 10/22/25, its lowest point since April.)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5ETNX/
10 Year Treasury price: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ZN%3DF/

Bitcoin: $66,364 @ 5:40 PM 2/18 # It was $75,512 @ 6:50 PM ET Feb 3. It was $84,009 @ 944pm ET Friday 1/30. It was $95,401 @ 533p ET 1/16/26, It recently exceeded at last it's end of year 2024 closing level ($93,429), but it's back below the waterline on that metric, , It's in bear market territory, down more than 20% from it's $126,000+ all-time high in October (20% down from $126,000 is $100,800) ACTUALLY, it's down 47% from $126,000 (Cryptocurrencies trade 24/7) https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/

Next Fed rate decision: March 18 (last was January 28)
CME FedWatch tool (probabilities of various Fed interest rate moves) 1/30: 13% chance of a rate cut), 2/10: 20% chance, 2/13: 9% chance
. . . https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html

The S&P 500 closed Wednesday February 18 at 6881, up 0.6% for the day,
and up 19.0% from the 5783 election day closing level,
and up 14.7% from the inauguration eve closing level,
and up 17.0% since the December 31, 2024 close
and up 0.5% Year-To-Date (since the December 31, 2025 close)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC
(more below on the S&P 500 levels corresponding to the above, and also the Dow)

Market news of the day: https://finance.yahoo.com/

How to find the latest Yahoo Finance "stock market today" report if it's not at the finance.yahoo page (note that the headline displayed there does not include the "Stock Market Today" words, but the article itself does): click on
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22stock+market+today%22+site%3Afinance.yahoo.com&oq=%22stock+market+today%22+site%3Afinance.yahoo.com

If the link doesn't work for you,
Google: "stock market today" site:finance.yahoo.com

First I will briefly cover Tuesday (Markets were closed Monday). Then on to Wednesday

Tuesday Feb 17

S&P 500 up 0.10% Tuesday, Dow up 0.07% (32 points), Nasdaq up 0.14%

How major US stock indexes fared Tuesday, 2/17/2026, AP, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/major-us-stock-indexes-fared-211658861.html

ADP Employment Change 4-week average rises to 10,250 through January 31, FXStreet, 2/17/26
LBN Thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1014361744
For the 4 weeks through January 31, that comes to just 44,000 private sector jobs. This is just 1/4 of the private sector jobs that the BLS reported for January on February 11. (ADP is a non-governmental private payroll processor)


--- SCROLLING DOWN THE PAGE, Tuesday February 17 -----

Apple stock jumps 3% on report of accelerated push into AI wearables

With next-gen plan for EVs, Ford pivots to 'universal' platform designed to cut manufacturing costs

BofA: Corporate profits rise while labor income falls, 'fueling K-shaped economy'

*There's a graph from 2006 on: Wages and salaries as a percent of GDP, compared to Corporate profits as a percent of GDP

The wages and salaries, at about 7.4% of GDP in the latest point on the graph, is lower than any point on the graph, per progreerian eyeballs

Stock pickers see their moment to shine in market’s AI freak-out



Wednesday February 18



Note that the PCE Inflation gauge, the Fed's favorite, comes out Friday.

--- SCROLLING DOWN THE PAGE, Wednesday February 18 -----

Energy stocks outperform as oil gains (334p EST)


WTI Crude oil (CL=F) jumps from 62.51 @ 500 AM ET to 65.26 @ 643 PM ET, an increase of 4.4% -
-This is a made-up Progreerian story -- I saw some stories referring to a big crude oil jump, but they were earlier in the day, so I decided to investigate (the prices above are real).
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CL%3DF/
One article blamed the oil price jump on: "peace talks between Russia and Ukraine appeared to collapse after only two hours and the status of US-Iran talks remained uncertain"

Trump administration slams New York Fed study that says US consumers bear the cost of tariffs
LBN story: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143618288

Gold rebounds to $5,000 as US-Iran tensions rise silver and platinum too
.
Gasoline prices stay on track for 12th week in a row under $3 per gallon but has moved up $0.10 in the past month

US industrial production grew in January by widest monthly margin since March 2025 (largest month-on-month percentage increase since March, +0.7%)


Moderna shares jump after FDA reverses course, agrees to review drugmaker's new flu vaccine

Housing starts jump to 5-month high in December


FRED graph shown: "New Privately-Owned Housing Units Started, Total Units" from 2016 onward

----- Other Articles 2/18/26 --------

US stocks are off to their worst start versus the global market since 1995, Yahoo Finance, 2/18/26
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-stocks-are-off-to-their-worst-start-versus-the-global-market-since-1995-110019152.html

*THERE's an iShares MSCI ACWI ex U.S. ETF (ACWX) VERSUS S&P 500 - where one can set 1 D, 5D, 1M, 6M, YTD (9.7% v. 0.8%), 1Y (31.7% vs. 12.9%), 5Y (30.0% v. 76.7%), ALL (starting about 4/2008: 35% vs. 393%)
(ACWI stands for All Country World Index). One can see that the S&P 500 vastly outperformed the rest of the world in the past 5 years and the past 18 years, but since late 2024, the rest of the world has outperformed the S&P 500.



================================

CALENDAR

Recent and Coming Up, Reports (I'm also keeping February 9 and later ones for now, I put the older ones in reply #1
https://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendar

See Reply #1 to this thread for reports prior to February 9.

The government reports are all seasonally adjusted, as are most, if not all, of the non-government reports the media covers, so please don't post comments about how the numbers look good (or not as bad as expected) only because of Christmas season hires or Christmas shopping -- seasonal factors like that have been adjusted for

THIS WEEK'S REPORTS (FEB 16-20) FOLLOWED BY NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR (FEB 23-27)


MONDAY FEB 16

None scheduled, President's Day holiday


TUESDAY FEB 17

Nothing

WEDNESDAY FEB 18

# Housing Starts for November and December
Housing starts jump to 5-month high in December
Go to Stock Market Today https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-gain-for-3rd-straight-day-nasdaq-jumps-as-traders-brush-aside-ai-worries-210052721.html
and scroll down the page quite a ways, or search the page for "housing starts"
Yes, I wish Yahoo would give these articles their own URL.

The number of new single-family homes under construction in December hit an annualized rate of 1.4 million homes, up 6.2% from November and ahead of forecasts for an annualized rate of 1.32 million homes, according to data from the Census Bureau. This pace of building, however, is still 7.3% below December 2024.

This report followed Tuesday's read on homebuilder confidence from the NAHB, which showed sentiment fell by another point to 36 this month, the lowest reading since September.

**FRED graph shown in the article, graph is titled: "New Privately-Owned Housing Units Started, Total Units" from 2016 onward


# Building Permits for November and December

December was 1.32 million vs. 1.31 million expected and 1.27 million previously, according to https://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendar

# Durable Goods Orders for December

Durable goods orders were down 1.4% in December vs. down 2.0% expected, and +5.4% previously according to https://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendar . I believe these are seasonally adjusted. I don't have an explanation, I haven't looked for an article.


# Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for January
Go to Stock Market Today https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-gain-for-3rd-straight-day-nasdaq-jumps-as-traders-brush-aside-ai-worries-210052721.html
and scroll down the page quite a ways, or search the page for "industrial production"
Yes, I wish Yahoo would give these articles their own URL.

US industrial production grew in January by widest monthly margin since March 2025 (+0.7%. It was the largest month-on-month percentage increase since March 2025,

Compared to a year ago, industrial production and manufacturing activity were up 2.3% and 2.4%.

# Minutes of Fed's January FOMC meeting

THURSDAY FEB 19 (CALENDAR)

# Unemployment insurance claims
* SOURCE URL: The CURRENT one is always at: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
This report's permalink: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20260219
* Permalinks for the current one and recent previous ones: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases
. . . and search the page for "Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report"

# U.S. trade deficit for December

# Advanced U.S. trade balance in goods for December

# Leading economic index for December


FRIDAY FEB 20 (CALENDAR)

# GDP Q4 FIRST ESTIMATE
2.5% annualized growth expected,
Q3 was 4.4% annualized rate (I know I know, but the AI spending counts as GDP, even if it produces nothing useful)

# PCE Inflation for December - Fed's favorite inflation gauge
Expected: month-over-month: 0.3%, year-over-year: 2.8% (both numbers same as November's)

This inflation gauge fully includes substitution effects, so for example if beef prices are way up and a lot of consumers switch to turkey necks, this inflation gauge will show a subdued rise or even a drop in the meat price index. But I suspect the Fed likes it because it tends to produce a lower inflation rate than the CPI

* SOURCE URLS:: https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-income
. . . CURRENT RELEASE (Last time, for November): https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/personal-income-and-outlays-october-and-november-2025
. . . Full Release and Tables(Last time, for November): https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/pi10-1125.pdf
. . . PCE DATA SERIES: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCEPI
. . . CORE PCE DATA SERIES: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/PCEPILFE

# Personal Income and Spending for December

* SOURCE URLS:: https://www.bea.gov/data/income-saving/personal-income
. . . CURRENT RELEASE (Last time, for November): https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/personal-income-and-outlays-october-and-november-2025
. . . Full Release and Tables(Last time, for November): https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/pi10-1125.pdf

# S&P flash U.S. services PMI for February

# S&P flash U.S. manufacturing PMI for February

# New home sales for November and December

# Consumer sentiment (prelim) for February

SOURCE: https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/
GRAPH, 10 years: https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/files/chicsr.pdf
GRAPH, 50 years: https://www.sca.isr.umich.edu/files/chicsh.pdf


NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR (FEB 23-27)


MONDAY FEB 23 (CALENDAR)

# Factory orders December

TUESDAY FEB 24 (CALENDAR)

# S&P Case-Shiller home price index (20 cities), December

# Consumer confidence, February

WEDNESDAY FEB 25 (CALENDAR)

Nothing

THURSDAY FEB 26 (CALENDAR)

# Unemployment insurance claims

FRIDAY FEB 27 (CALENDAR)

# PPI Producer Price Index aka wholesale prices, January - last time the month-over-month was a whopping 0.5%, that's roughly a 6% annualized rate, and the year over year was 3.0% (the core PPI year-over-year was 3.5%). The Krasnov Krasnov! Brigade was eerily silent about that one.


The full calendar: https://www.marketwatch.com/economy-politics/calendar

Revised release dates for Bureau of Labor Statistics reports: https://www.bls.gov/bls/2025-lapse-revised-release-dates.htm

BEA.GOV news release schedule (they produce reports on the GDP, Retail Sales, PCE Inflation (the Fed's favorite inflation gauge), and Personal Consumption and Income: https://www.bea.gov/news/schedule

ADP NER Pulse (private payrolls weekly update): Is every Tuesday. The ultimate source: https://www.adpresearch.com/
and look for "NER Pulse"

LAST WEEK'S REPORTS (FEB 9-13)


MONDAY FEB 09

Nothing


TUESDAY FEB 10

# NFIB optimism index, January

US small-business confidence slipped in January, Wall St. Journal, 2/10/26 (no paywall or gimmicks at this MSN-hosted article)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbusiness/us-small-business-confidence-slipped-in-january/ar-AA1W33sy

# US consumer delinquencies jump to highest in almost a decade, Bloomberg, 2/10/26
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-consumer-delinquencies-jump-to-highest-in-almost-a-decade/ar-AA1W4vwC
I haven't had time to read this article, but title is sure gloomy.

# Employment Cost index, Q4 - Considered the best statistic on wages/salaries and benefits, and the Federal Reserve's favorite source on the same.

Economy Group post: https://www.democraticunderground.com/1116101681
From the source: https://www.bls.gov/eci/

Some context:

[1] The Pandemic’s Effect on Measured Wage Growth, The WHite House, 4/19/21 ((Biden era))
. . . Original link now gone, thanks to Krasnov: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/04/19/the-pandemics-effect-on-measured-wage-growth/
. . . The Archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20220208080743/https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/04/19/the-pandemics-effect-on-measured-wage-growth/

# Import price index
This is another one I don't have time to look into now

# Retail sales - caution: not inflation-adjusted, so one gets a distorted view of increases in retail sales, when often most of that is simply due to price increases. It is seasonally adjusted.

RETAIL SALES DECEMBER over November: +0.0%, Inflation was 0.31%, so inflation-adjusted retail sales were down about 0.3% for the month

RETAIL SALES for the 12 month period through December (i.e. year-over-year): +2.4%, Inflation: +2.7%, so inflation-adjusted retail sales were down about 0.3% for the 12-month period

LBN Thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143614155

From the Source: https://www.census.gov/retail/index.html -- > https://www.census.gov/retail/sales.html :
Remember the below numbers are not inflation adjusted
. . . [] Advance Retail Sales: Retail Trade and Food Services (MARTSMPCSM44X72USN), Not Seasonally Adjusted: +10.9% == https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MARTSMPCSM44X72USN
. . . [] Advance Retail Sales: Retail Trade and Food Services (MARTSMPCSM44X72USS), Seasonally Adjusted: +-0.0% == https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MARTSMPCSM44X72USS
And so the seasonal adjustment process turned a 10.9% increase to 0.0% in December (remember it's the Christmas month ho ho ho)

CPI inflation: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUSR0000SA0

WEDNESDAY FEB 11

# The big "First Friday" monthly BLS jobs report that produces the headline non-farm payroll jobs number and unemployment rate - January

Ultimate source of the latest release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Permanent copy of this January report: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_02112026.htm

LBN Thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143614651

The before and after the big jobs revisions, month by month:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3615236

Here's a summary table showing the annual totals:

Annual Totals, in thousands

Year Before After Difference
2022] 4555 4526 -29
2023] 2594 2515 -79
2024] 2012 1459 -553
2025] 584 181 -403

2025 comes out to an average of 15k jobs/month. If you remove January, it is 21k/month. A barely above-the-waterline record.

And yet most media headlines are about a big surge in jobs (130,000) in January. 130,000 is not a big number, but relatively speaking it's a "surge" compared to the pathetic average monthly jobs growth in 2025.

The unemployment rate (from a separate survey, the Household Survey) fell from 4.4% to 4.3% (It was 4.0% in January 2025, a year ago)
The Household Survey's "Employed" number increased by just 689,000 since January 2025 ( 57,000 / month average ).


THURSDAY FEB 12

# Unemployment insurance claims
* SOURCE URL: The CURRENT one is always at: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
This report's permalink: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20260212
* Permalinks for the current one and recent previous ones: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases
. . . and search the page for "Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report"



# Existing home sales Jan.



FRIDAY FEB 13

# Consumer price index Jan.

LBN Thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143615668

A lot of response from the Krasnov Krasnov! Brigade. But they were eerily absent when the latest PPI (Producer Price Index, aka Wholesale Prices) report reported a 0.5% increase in December (that's a 6.0% annualized rate), and 3.0% over the past 12 months (their core measure was 3.5% over the past 12 months) https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143608234 (see Reply #1 for more on that 1/30/26 report with the title, "Wholesale prices rise sharply and show new Fed chief could confront stubborn inflation" )

Back to CPI - here's the core part of it, which is considered by the Federal Reserve as more representative of underlying trends and more predictive of FUTURE inflation - assertions that have been back-tested. This one is a rolling 3 month average, so that it's more than a "One off" of the latest month, but with much more recency than year-over-year. It shows a distinctive up-turn



The regular CPI's 3 month rolling average also has risen the last 2 months in a row, although not as sharply. So much for "cooling inflation" I guess.

Chicago Fed's Goolsbee says interest rates could fall 'a fair bit more,' but more inflation progress is needed, Yahoo Finance, 2/13/26
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chicago-feds-goolsbee-says-interest-rates-could-fall-a-fair-bit-more-but-more-inflation-progress-is-needed-210239035.html
He is concerned about services inflation which tends to be persistent and not driven by tariffs (so an easing of tariffs isn't going to help much with services inflation, and if the impact of tariffs is a one-time thing, as many think, that's not going to help with services inflation. Says inflation has been above the target for more than 4.5 years now)

Erika McEntarfer (fired former BLS Commissioner) "Person who was fired here - you should still trust BLS data." - The agency is being run by the same dedicated career staff who were running it while I was awaiting confirmation from the Senate. And the staff have made it clear that they are blowing a loud whistle if there is interference." https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3614986





=============================================
The S&P 500 closed Wednesday February 18 at 6881, up 0.6% for the day,
and up 19.0% from the 5783 election day closing level,
and up 14.7% from the inauguration eve closing level,
and up 17.0% since the December 31, 2024 close
and up 0.5% Year-To-Date (since the December 31, 2025 close)

S&P 500
# Election day close (11/5/24) 5783
# Last close before inauguration day: (1/17/25): 5997
# 2024 year-end close (12/31/24): 5882
# Trump II era low point (going all the way back to election day Nov5): 4983 on April 8
# 2025 year-end close (12/31/25): 6845
# October 28 all-time-high: 6890.90, surpassed by December 24's all-time high of 6932.00

# Several market indexes: https://finance.yahoo.com/
# S&P 500: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/history/
# S&P 500 futures: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ES%3DF/

Bitcoin
Bitcoin ended 2024 at $93,429. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/
Bitcoin's all-time interday high: 126,198 on Oct. 6
Bitcoin's all-time closing high: 124,753 on Oct 6. (that's what Yahoo Finance shows, but cryptocurrencies trade 24/7)
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history/

========================================================

I'm not a fan of the DOW as it is a cherry-picked collection of just 30 stocks that are price-weighted, which is silly. It's as asinine as judging consumer price inflation by picking 30 blue chip consumer items, and weighting them according to their prices. But since there is an automatically updating embedded graphic, here it is. It takes several, like 6 hours, after the close for it to update, like about 10 PM EDT.
(If it still isn't updated, try right-clicking on it and opening in a new tab. #OR# click on https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/ ).

The Dow closed Tuesday at 49,533, and it closed Wednday at 49,663, a rise of 0.3% (129 points) for the day

https://finance.yahoo.com/
DOW: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/
. . . . . . https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EDJI/history/

DOW
# Election day close (11/5/24) 42,222
# Last close before inauguration day: (1/17/25): 43,488
# 2024 year-end close (12/31/24): 42,544
# 2025 year-end close (12/31/25): 48,063

DJIA means Dow Jones Industrials Average. It takes about 6 hours after the close to update, so check it after 10 PM EDT. Sometimes it takes a couple days (sigh)



I don't have an embeddable graph for the S&P 500, unfortunately, but to see its graph, click on https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EGSPC/

While I'm at it, I might as well show Oil and the Dollar:

Crude Oil


US Dollar Index (DX-Y.NYB)


If you see a tiny graphics square above and no graph, right click on the square and choose "load image". There should be a total of 3 graphs. And remember that it typically takes about 6 hours after the close before these graphs update.
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