Positives 1) The government will not partially close again this time around. 2) Headline PPI in January was one tenth less than expected when including a revision to December. The core rate though was up .2% m/o/m as expected and 2.6% y/o/y. Trade costs jumped by .8% and transportation/warehousing was higher by .5%. 3) In December, there were 7.3mm job openings, a …
[Read more...] about Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 2/15
Amazon (Atlas) Shrugged. What NY has done has resulted in some of the following: Lost jobs. Lost job experience. Lost internships. Lost high paying jobs. Lost life experiences. Lost taxes. Lost construction workers. Lost work for architects. Lost steel, cement production. Lost plumbing supplies. Lost electrical work. Lost carpet and hard wood floor sales. Lost …
The impact of the weak retail sales number has resulted in the Atlanta Fed GDPNow forecast for Q4 to fall to 1.5% from 2.7% previously. As today’s December number was so far off relative to expectations, I’m hopeful that there were seasonal adjustment issues and maybe a problem with the government getting all the right info in light of the shutdown affecting the …
December retail sales, a bit late to be reported but capturing the holiday season and a sharp decline in stock prices, dropped by a sharp 1.7% at the core level (ex auto’s, gasoline and building materials), much worse than the estimate of up .4%. There was a 3.9% m/o/m decline in online sales and the y/o/y increase slowed dramatically to just 3.1%. Sales at …
After falling to the least since June 2018 last week, the number of Bears within the AAII stock market sentiment survey rose 2.3 pts to 25.1. That is 10 pts below the number of Bulls at 35.1, down 4.8 pts w/o/w. The rest are Neutral. Bottom line, as seen in today's figure, yesterday's II and the CNN Fear/Greed, sentiment has certainly gotten more bullish but not to …
The January CPI saw no change at the headline level and a .2% core rate of increase which brings the y/o/y increases to 1.6% and 2.2% respectively. This is in line with expectations. Another decline in oil prices kept a lid on the headline figure. Food prices were up .2% m/o/m and 1.6% y/o/y. In what continues to be the case, services inflation ex energy remains …
[Read more...] about Please stop telling me there is no inflation
I think it's great that Chinese President Xi will meet with Lighthizer and Mnuchin on Friday (according to the South China Morning Post) as I'm sure he wouldn't be doing this if the two sides were far apart on a deal. Assuming we get one of some sort, the next question then is what happens to the tariffs already in place. Will they immediately come off or will they …
[Read more...] about Charm offensive/Sentiment/Lower rates didn’t help/Other
In December, there were 7.3mm job openings, a record high and well above the estimate of 6.8mm and up from 7.2mm in November. Hiring’s though were up by a more modest 95k and the hiring rate was unchanged (likely reflecting the challenge of finding the right workers in terms of needed skills). The quit rate also was unchanged at 2.3%. With respect to where the …
If the market is rallying this morning because the government won't shut down again, I'd find a better reason for chasing it at 9:30am est since we had the best January in 30 years when it was closed. Make your reason related to China trade talks (where the March 1st deadline is likely to be extended), earnings, Fed policy, economy, etc... Small business optimism …
The UK economy grew by 1.3% y/o/y in Q4, one tenth less than expected and vs 1.5% in Q3. It matches the slowest since Q2 2012 and since the Brexit vote in June 2016, the UK has had just one quarter with a 2 handle (2% in Q3 2017). A 1.4% y/o/y drop in business investment and .9% y/o/y fall in exports offset a gain in consumer and government spending. Specifically …
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.
