Positives 1)The March ISM services index rose to 63.7 from 55.3 and that was well above the estimate of 59. This is the highest on record dating back to 1997. All 18 industries surveyed saw growth vs 17 in February and 14 in January. The ISM summed up the release by saying “Respondents’ comments indicate that the lifting of covid related restrictions has …
[Read more...] about Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events – 4/9
The March PPI rose 1% m/o/m, double the estimate and the core rate jumped by .7%, more than triple the forecast. Versus last year, producer prices rose 4.2% and by 3.1% ex food and energy. Easy comps for sure but considering the extent of the beat, it is more than just that. Energy prices were up by 5.9% m/o/m after a 6% rise in February. Food prices grew by .5% …
Ahead of the US PPI figure today, China said its PPI calculation rose 4.4% y/o/y in March, up from 1.7% in February and above the estimate of 3.6%. Supply constraints, higher commodity prices and transportation costs were the main reasons as it is everywhere. What it also means is that China is going to start exporting higher prices to the rest of us if this persists. …
Initial jobless claims totaled 744k, 64k more than expected and up from 719k last week. The 4 week average is now 724k from 721k last week. Positively, those receiving pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) did fall to 152k from 237k but those continuing to get it remains high. Delayed by a week, continuing claims fell by 60k w/o/w to 3.73mm but that was almost 100k …
Yesterday we saw the bull sentiment get extreme in the 'professional' community as measured by Investors Intelligence. Today we see the individual investor sentiment has gotten extreme too. Bulls jumped 11.1 pts w/o/w to 56.9. The is the highest since the 1st week of 2018. Bears fell to the lowest since April 2019 at 20.4, down 2.8 pts w/o/w. The spread between the …
[Read more...] about Bull boat full again/Supply crunches/Some data
The FOMC minutes from the meeting three weeks ago was uneventful in terms of delivering new news, especially after hearing from a slew of members over this time frame, including today. We know that even though the economy will ‘normalize’ with the continued increase in inoculation, the Fed will not be normalizing policy anytime soon. The policy of lower for …
[Read more...] about The Fed minutes and the bifurcation between big and small
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.
