At least from an individual investor standpoint, there was a quite a shift in sentiment this past week. While always fickle week to week, Bears jumped by 12.1 pts to 39.3 to the highest since October 2020. The number of Bulls plunged by 16.5 pts to just 22.4, the lowest since July 2020. This report yesterday followed the Investors Intelligence measure of …
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Import prices/NY Mfr’g
Import prices in August ex petro was about as expected when including the upward revision to July. Versus last year prices ex petro rose 5.9% and also taking out all fuels/food, grew by 5.2%. After skyrocketing price increases year to date thru July, industrial supply import prices fell back by 1.7%, although are still up 35% y/o/y. Food/beverage import prices rose …
A few things today
According to the MBA, the average 30 yr mortgage rate held at 3.03% for the 4th straight week. Purchases jumped by 7.5% w/o/w after little change in the week prior. Seasonally though, I don't know how much the late Labor Day weekend was an influence in the timing and calculations. Versus last year, they are still down almost 12% and we certainly know the major factors …
Inflation stats
Headline CPI rose .3% m/o/m in August and the core rate was higher by .1% m/o/m with both under expectations with the former by one tenth and the latter by two tenths. Versus last year, headline inflation is up by 5.3% and the core rate by 4% vs 5.4% and 4.3% in July respectively. Notwithstanding the miss relative to expectations, core CPI is running at a 6 month …
Ahead of CPI…
Ahead of the CPI report today, if you didn't see yesterday the August NY Fed's consumer expectations survey where the respondents see one year inflation now reaching 5.2% from 4.8% in July. It was 4% in May. It was 3% in January. Looking out 3 years it is now 4% vs 3.7% in July and 3% in January. I'm spotting a trend here. The NY Fed said "Both increases were broad …
Inflation expectations in Europe break out to upside.
Maybe because Christine Lagarde and ECB have made it clear that they are going to slow walk any taper and they'll be stuck with negative rates for years to come after already 7 years with it, inflation expectations in the Eurozone keeps rising. Today the 5 yr 5 yr Euro inflation swap, which Lagarde was asked about at her press conference and said she's watching it but …
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PPI stays hot
Headline PPI in August rose .7% m/o/m and .6% core. The core rate was as expected while the headline was one tenth more. Versus last year, headline PPI is up 8.3% and by 6.7% ex food and energy. Core goods price rose .6% m/o/m after 4 straight months of 1% increases and an .8% rise in March. Thus the annualized rate of PPI gain for core goods over the past 6 months is …
Wages/Other
The Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker is finally catching up to the reality on the ground as it showed 3.9% y/o/y growth in August, matching the quickest since 2008. If the Fed's just reported Beige Book this week is any indication reflecting a broadening out of the wage gains, expect this figure to have a 4 handle soon. According to the Atlanta Fed's website, this is …
Initial claims take another leg lower/ECB
The pace of firing’s continues to fall which makes a lot of sense when there are so many job openings. Initial claims totaled 310k, 25k less than expected and down 35k from last week. This brings the 4 week average down to 340k from 356k. Those initially filing for PUA fell to 96k from 103k. Continuing claims, right before the extended kind fully expires, were …
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Sentiment/QE/Other
Yesterday II said Bulls rose .5 pt w/o/w to 52.6 while Bears fell .2 pts to 21.1 after jumping over 20 last week. Today AAII said Bulls fell 4.5 pts to 38.9 after rising by 10.2 in the two prior weeks but all of them went to the Neutral side, or we can call it the "I don't know" crowd. Bears fell too, by 6.1 pts to 27.2 and that is the least since July 29th with all …
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.