Finding the Floor

The Week Ahead - March 9, 2026

The war in the Middle East moves into its second week, as bombing and unrest spread across the region to neighboring countries. The most relevant impact on the domestic front has been the largest one-week surge in oil prices on record with WTI crude surpassing $92 per barrel on Friday. The rise in energy prices adds insult to injury, as last week’s incoming economic data showed signs of significantly softer growth.

The economy lost 92,000 jobs in what was the worst month for the labor market since the pandemic. Granted, cold weather and some 28,000 healthcare workers on strike negatively impacted the number, but the economy still lost jobs on a net basis. The unemployment rate edged up from 4.3% to 4.4%, while wage growth inched higher to 3.8%. The prior two months were revised lower by 69,000. This kind of stagnation, resulting predominantly from immigration policies and AI-related job losses, can’t continue indefinitely if we are going to maintain trend economic growth of 2%.

Retail sales fell 0.2% in January from the previous month, while control group sales (exclude autos, gas, food, and building materials) used to calculate GDP increased 0.3%. Sales increased 3.2% over the prior year.