Positives 1)While the Fed continues to drag its feet with cutting back on buying bonds, it finally does seem that it will begin in December. 2)The Norges Bank in Norway hiked rates off zero by 25 bps. 3)The Bank of England expressed concern with inflation and a rate hike is possible in Q1 2022 after QE ends in December. 4)Those filing for PUA fell again to …
[Read more...] about Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 9/24
Contract signings to buy a new home in August totaled 740k annualized. That is 25k above expectations and July was revised up by 21k to 729k. Smoothing out this volatile series has the 3 month average at 718k, the 6 month average at 759k and 12 month average of 843k. This slowing trend we can blame on not enough homes, particularly lower prices ones where demand is …
Here were Costco's comments on inflation in last night's conference call, "inflationary factors abound: higher labor costs, higher freight costs, higher transportation demand, along with container shortages and port delays, increased demand in certain product categories, various shortages of everything from computer chips to oils and chemicals, higher commodities …
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The selloff in US Treasuries today is really coming in response to the jump in rates in Europe after the market in the UK market has begun to price in rate increases, more likely in March but also as early as November. November is highly unlikely as they will want to wait for QE to end in December but point being it’s coming soon possibly. The 2 yr gilt yield, highly …
The Markit September US PMI fell to 54.5 from 55.4 with both services and manufacturing slightly moderating. That composite figure is the slowest since September 2020. With services Markit said “Contributing to the softer increase in activity was a slower rise in new business…Total sales were also hampered by a quicker decline in new export orders. Employment was …
Initial jobless claims totaled 351k, 31k more than expected and up from 335k last week (revised up by 3k). The 4 week average was little changed at 336k. Those filing for PUA fell again to just 15k vs 23k last week and 94k in the week prior. After falling by 138k in the previous read, continuing claims rose by 131k to 2.845mm. Delayed by two weeks, continuing PUA fell …
While the Fed still feels the need to have max policy for another two months and buy another $240b worth of Treasuries and MBS I guess in their desire to further boost the demand for homes and cars, the two most interest rate sensitive sectors, even though there is little of each to be found which has resulted in huge inflation for both, at least just maybe in …
The FOMC statement was pretty dull with wording on the economy not much different than seen in the July one. Instead of announcing a soon to start taper today, they kicked it to the next meeting by saying “If progress continues broadly as expected, the Committee judges that a moderation in the pace of asset purchases may soon be warranted.” They remain of the …
I included a quote in this morning’s note on FedEx and what labor market problems are doing to their business. Here is another that gives an example of what they are dealing with: “Our Portland Oregon hub is running with approximately 65% of the staffing needed to handle its normal volume. This staffing shortage has a pronounced impact on the operations, which …
With widespread labor shortages which in turn is leading to bigger wage increases and pass thru in higher prices along with other widespread inflation, what the Fed should do today (announce the asset purchase trim will start October 1) could be different than what they will do (kick the can to the November meeting for a possible December 1 trim). They could use the …
[Read more...] about “The Fed’s experiment in capitalism without interest rates”
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.
