Positives 1)A US/China Phase One deal is officially signed. 2)Housing starts in December totaled 1.608mm, well better than the estimate of 1.38mm, up from 1.375mm in November and it's the best since December 2006. Both single family and multi family saw good gains. Part of the jump in starts was favorable weather but also due to lower mortgage rates and more supply …
[Read more...] about Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events 1/17
I forgot to add this to the Negative side: 15)Job openings in November fell to 6.8mm from 7.36mm and that is the least amount since February 2018. …
The main story today is the China data reported that was pretty much in line with expectations. Growth in Q4 magically grew by 6% y/o/y, the same pace as in Q3 but which is the slowest since at least the early 1990's. For all of 2019, growth was 6.1% with consumption making up just below 60% of it. The data for December specifically was this: Retail Sales up 8% y/o/y …
Core retail sales in December rose .5% m/o/m, one tenth more than expected but offset by a 2 tenths downward revision to November to -.1%. So call it about a push relative to expectations. Because of the late Thanksgiving, it is really best to merge the November and December data points and core sales grew by 4.4% y/o/y and 4.2% y/o/y ex auto's and gasoline. Pretty …
Like I've said in the past, I wish the 10 yr Treasury yield could speak to us and say what they're thinking about the growth story because the yield just sits there and does nothing in light of this trade deal. On December 11th, the day before the deal was announced the 10 yr yield was at 1.79%. The next day upon the news, it jumped 10 bps to 1.89%. Today it's at …
Let’s hope this Phase One deal, which I applaud the progress made on IP protection and glad the American farmer can get its once biggest customer back, alters the mood of global business because Cass Freight just announced their December shipments data and it fell 7.9% y/o/y, “the steepest decline since the Great Recession of 2008-2009.” I will give this a partial …
The January NY manufacturing index, the first January industrial figure seen, was little changed at 4.8 from a revised 3.3 in December (from 3.5). That is a touch better than the estimate of 3.6. After averaging 19.8 in 2018, manufacturing in this region has been barely in expansion since last Spring. New orders rose to 6.6 from 1.7 while backlogs were …
Along with the persistence rally in stocks, Investors Intelligence said bullish sentiment rose on the week with Bulls rising to 57 from 55.1 while Bears remained unchanged at 17.8. The spread is just shy of the extreme read of 40. The uber extreme on the Bull side is when it gets above 60 and Bears get around 15. Bottom line, sentiment is very bullish as measured by a …
Last week Edmonds.com said the average price of a new vehicle sold in 2019 was $37,183, a new record high and up 30% from where it was 10 years ago. Within today’s CPI, the price of a new car reflected a 2% increase in TOTAL since 2009. This is magically done via hedonic adjustments which discount the value of new add ons with each subsequent iteration of …
Both headline and core CPI rose one tenth less than expected, higher by .2% and .1% m/o/m respectively. The headline number though rose to 2.3% y/o/y from 2.1% and the core rate held at 2.3% y/o/y which was as expected due to rounding. Again, services inflation is being mitigated by the lack of goods inflation. Services inflation ex energy rose .2% m/o/m and 3% …
[Read more...] about Core CPI with 2 handle for 22nd straight month
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.
