The Boock Report

Peter Boockvar

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 1/20

Positives 1)Possibly influenced by the MLK holiday, initial jobless claims fell under 200k at 190k vs the estimate of 214k and down from 205k last week. The 4 week average fell to 206k from 213k in the week before. Delayed by a week, continuing claims rose 17k to 1.647mm but after falling by 67k in the week before. 2)Headline PPI fell by .5% m/o/m in December, …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 1/13

Positives 1)The December CPI fell one tenth headline while up .3% core and both were exactly as anticipated. Versus last year, headline inflation rose 6.5% and the core rate was higher by 5.7% with both a slowdown from the 7.1% and 6% seen in November, respectively. Energy prices fell 4.5% m/o/m, though still up 7.3% y/o/y. Food prices grew by .3% m/o/m and a still …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 1/6

Positives 1)Payrolls grew by 223k in December, 20k more than expected but the two prior months were revised down by 28k so let’s call it a push. The household survey saw a big jump of 717k jobs (all part time though) and when combined with the rise in the labor force of 439k, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, back to the level seen before Covid hit. The all in U6 …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 12/16

Positives 1)We’re reaching a point soon where these rate hikes will enter the negative category. The Fed, BoE, ECB, SNB, Norges Bank, and central banks in Taiwan, Mexico, Columbia and the Philippines all raised interest rates as anticipated. I’ll include another Duran Duran quote this week with respect to the Fed as they respond to their view on inflation with more …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 12/9

Positives 1)The November ISM services index rose to 56.5 from 54.4 in October and that was also 3 pts better than expected. It compares with 56.7 in September. The internals though were pretty mixed. While the headline ISM rose, the breadth weakened as 13 industries saw growth vs 16 in October and 15 in September. The ISM said in a bottom line, “increased capacity …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 11/20

Positives 1)Moderna's vaccine has 95% efficacy and Pfizer confirmed that theirs does too. 2)While no government program or new Fed facility ever really dies, it was good to see some temporarily put to bed.   3)Continuing claims fell to 6.37mm from 6.8mm in the week prior and that was slightly less than the estimate of 6.4mm. Continuing claims for PUA fell …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 1/24

Positives 1)The US services PMI for January rose .4 pts m/o/m to 53.2, the best since March 2019. “The expansion in new orders moderated slightly.” but, employment rose and “Service sector firms signaled an improvement in business expectations, as the degree of optimism reached a 7 month high. However, business confidence remained well below the series trend.” With …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 9/20

Positives 1)The Fed took another step in trying to address the manufacturing and trade driven economic moderation with its 25 bps rate cut. 2)Initial jobless totaled 208k, 5k less than expected and vs 206k last week. This brings the 4 week to 212k from 213k last week and vs 217k the week prior. 3)Existing home sales in August totaled 5.49mm, about 100k more …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 9/13

Positives 1) Both sides are showing some signs of bending on the trade negotiations with a combination of economic and political pressures building. 2) The preliminary September UoM consumer confidence index ticked up a touch to 92 from 89.8 and that was 1.2 pts above the forecast and which follows the 8.6 pt drop in August. Both current conditions and …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 9/6

Positives 1) Within the payroll report, the household survey reflected a jump of 590k jobs (the biggest contribution from those aged 25-54) which combined with an increase of 571k in the size of the labor force kept the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7% as expected. The participation rate rose two tenths to 63.2% which does match the most since 2013 thanks to a …

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