The Boock Report

Weekly Summary

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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 – 12/2

Positives 1)Payrolls in November expanded by 263k, 63k more than anticipated, partly offset by a downward revision to the two prior months of 23k. Most of the beat was in the government sector as private payrolls rose by 221k, 36k above the estimate. Smoothing out the monthly noise puts the 3 month job hiring average at 272k vs the 6 month average of 323k, the 12 …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 11/18

Positives 1)Initial jobless claims fell to 222k from 226k last week and that is 6k under the estimate. The 4 week average though rose 2k to 221k. 2)Core retail sales were better than expected in October by 4 tenths with its 7 tenths gain and September was revised up by 2 tenths to a rise of .6%. The y/o/y gain was 6.5%. 3)In Realtor.com’s report on October …

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

Positives 1)The October CPI rose .4% headline and .3% core, both two tenths below expectations. The headline y/o/y increase was 7.7% vs 8.2% in September. The core rate was higher by 6.3% y/o/y after the 40 yr high print of 6.6% in the month before. Energy prices rebounded by 1.8% m/o/m after 3 months of declines and are higher by 17.6% y/o/y. Food prices rose …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 11/4

Positives 1)Payrolls grew by 261k in October, above the estimate of 193k and the two prior months were revised up by a combined 29k. About half of the upside surprise came from government workers. The private sector added 233k vs the forecast of 200k. The participation rate rose one tenth to 62.2% but was at 62.4% two months ago. The workweek held at 34.5 as …

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Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 10/28

Positives 1)Thanks to a much lower than expected price deflator, Real Q3 GDP beat estimates with a 2.6% increase vs the estimate of 2.4%. Looking at nominal growth, the estimate was 7.7% and we got 6.7%. Trade also was the main contributor to growth. The negative was that final sales to private domestic purchasers was up just .1%. …

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