“Stocks take the stairs up and the Elevator down!!” — unknown

1. China Covid-19 Lockdowns Hit Factories, Ports in Latest Knock to Supply Chains — with Covid-19 flaring up across China, major manufacturers are shutting factories, ports are clogging up and workers are in short supply as officials impose city lockdowns and mass testing on a scale unseen in nearly two years. The prospect of continued disruptions in the world’s second-largest economy, which has a zero-tolerance strategy for combating the pandemic, is heightening fears that the disruptions will ripple through the global economy. Already, companies including memory-chip maker Samsung Electronics Co., German auto maker Volkswagen AG and a textiles company that supplies Nike Inc. and Adidas AG are suffering production hitches.
2. U.S. Inflation Hits 39-Year High of 7%, Sets Stage for Fed Hike — the consumer price index climbed 7% in 2021, the largest 12-month gain since June 1982, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. The widely followed inflation gauge rose 0.5% from November, exceeding forecasts. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, so-called core prices accelerated from a month earlier, rising by a larger-than-forecast 0.6%. The measure jumped 5.5% from a year earlier, the biggest advance since 1991.
The increase in the CPI was led by higher prices for shelter and used vehicles. Food costs also contributed. Energy prices, which were a key driver of inflation through most of 2021, fell last month.
3. Supreme Court Halts Biden’s Vaccine Mandate for Businesses — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the federal government from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing rule for large private employers but let stand a vaccine mandate for most healthcare workers. The 6-3 decision in the case regarding businesses dealt a setback to the Biden administration’s efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus amid a record surge in infections and hospitalizations and as the economy returns to more normal conditions.
The ruling does not prevent private employers, states or colleges and universities from instituting their own mandates. The Court allowed New York and Maine to require their healthcare workers to be vaccinated and has upheld college vaccination requirements. And Citigroup is one big employer that has told its U.S. workers they will lose their jobs if they don’t get the vaccine, unless they get an exemption.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: