March payrolls grew by just 98k, almost half the estimate of up 180k and the two prior months were revised down by 38k. Of this, the private sector added just 89k jobs vs the estimate of up 170k. In contrast, the household survey said 472k new jobs were created and because the size of the labor force grew by 145k, the U3 unemployment rate fell to 4.5% from 4.7%, the …
Geopolitics rarely matter for markets
I have to leave the geopolitical analysis to others with what went on last night and try to focus on what impact, if any, it will have on markets. Typically these kinds of events don’t really matter more than a few days and this one definitely shouldn’t either. I went to sleep with the S&P futures down 13 pts and now they are essentially unchanged so that helps to …
Jobless Claims, China, Europe and more
Initial jobless claims totaled 234k, 16k less than expected and down from 259k last week and 261k in the week before. The 4 week average was 250k vs 255k last week and 247k in the week before. Continuing claims, delayed by a week, fell 24k after last week’s rise of 65k. Bottom line, for the past 3 weeks claims have come in much different than expectations, both up and …
“Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing…”
At 2pm est yesterday the two biggest risks to the market were highlighted in their different forms. Firstly, nothing new was revealed in the minutes, especially after hearing from a slew of Fed members over the past few weeks but maybe market participants need to get slapped a few times before they pay attention. I'll say again, I have a bridge to sell you if you …
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And the FOMC minutes say…
As we heard from a slew of Fed members over the past few weeks including 2 of 3 troika members (Fischer and Dudley), I wasn’t expecting much new in the just released minutes and we really didn’t get it. I like to joke that some said this, several said that, many said here, a few said there. It’s apparent that the Fed is on track to hike rates two more times this year …
The euphoria is cooling for a large swath of the US economy
The ISM services index for March moderated to 55.2 from 57.6 in February and is below the estimate of 57.0. It’s now at the lowest level since October when it was at 54.6 just before the election. New orders fell 2.3 pts to 58.9, the lowest since November and not much different than the October print of 57.7 and below the one in September at 59.6. Backlogs fell 1 pt …
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ADP, Bond View, Sentiment, Other Data
ADP said 263k private sector jobs were added in March. That was well above the estimate of 185k but the offset was a 53k downward revision to February to 245k and a 12k person downward revision to January to 249k. Thus, the combined upside was 13k jobs, so close to in line with expectations for the first 3 months of the year. Small businesses led the pace of hiring …
Update – Peter’s Ideas 4/4/17
I've done an update to my ideas page. (members click here). Once again, this week's write-up includes specific equity, ETN, and ETF commentary. I include this to show what specifically I am looking at on a risk/reward basis as well as idea generation that can then be applied to your own investments and risk analysis. Here's a sample from today's update: Gold was then …
Balance Sheet Shrinkage, Boom and Bust
With the hoped for Fed plan to hike interest rates two more times this year and a building swell of discussion on when to start allowing balance sheet shrinkage, I’m beginning to sense a pattern on what the preferred timing might just be with this all. Bill Dudley on Friday said “If we start to normalize the balance sheet, that’s a substitute for short term hikes…and …
Auto Sales
To quantify the soft March auto sales, Wards said the SAAR was 16.53mm vs the estimate of 17.3mm and down from 17.5mm in February. That is the slowest pace of sales since February 2015. Edmonds last week estimated that inventories are at the highest level since 2004. I’ll repeat again what I said earlier today, “we are past the best days in the auto sector in …
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.