The bid news was the Federal Reserve meeting The FOMC met again this month to decide whether to raise the prime rate. It looked to some like they might, but in the end more weak data gave them justification to put it off. Almost all experts expect them to raise the prime rate in December, a year after the last meager increase.
The news that influenced the markets this week were the housing starts, down 5.8%, and the building permits, down 0.4%. The market yawned at that, but then existing home sales for August were down .9% which was much slower than expected. So a quiet week all in all but with rates easing on the news of no rate hike.