I’ve continued to call out Mark Carney for the inflation problem he has on his hands and which he further facilitated with his panic easing after Brexit. For a 2nd straight month retail sales ex fuel were very disappointing. They fell .2% m/o/m in January vs the estimate of up .7%. Also, December sales were revised to a 2.2% m/o/m decline from -2% and vs the initial …
Housing Starts, Jobless Claims, Philly Phantastic?, Unprecedented Treasury Selling
January housing starts totaled 1.246mm, 20k more than expected and December was revised up by 53k to 1.279mm. Single family starts were up by 15k to 823k after falling by 18k in December. Multi family starts were 423k, down about 50k but after jumping by 150k in the month prior. Permits grew m/o/m but it was all in multi family. Starts there jumped by 79k to 477k, …
Hot CPI, Industrial Production, Jan Retail Sales, NY Manufacturing and more…
Headline CPI rose .6% m/o/m, double expectations and brings the y/o/y gain to 2.5%, the highest level in almost 5 years. Yes, energy was a main factor (up 4% m/o/m and 11% y/o/y) but the rate ex energy and food jumped .3% m/o/m and 2.3% y/o/y, also above expectations. The core rate pace matches the most since September 2008 as services inflation ex energy was up .3% …
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Tough to Shed a Dovish Reputation, Rate Hike Odds, Retailers/Border Adj. Tax and more…
Rate hike odds for March were at 34% before the CPI (they rose after), really not much of a change from the 30% before we heard from Yellen. I believe this is less due to what she said (she made it clear that they want to raise rates sooner rather than later) but more due to her reputation as the ultimate dove. The track record speaks for itself. Thus, with the market …
March Hike is on the Table
Janet Yellen is NOT committing herself to a March rate hike but she’s doing what I thought she should do and that is put March on the table (try to get rate hike odds nearer to 50%) vs a market that essentially took it off (with odds at 30%). She talked about the continued progress made on the employment front and the inflation stats moving to their target …
Yellen, Inflation, Jobs, Markets, March hike? and more…
With Janet Yellen in her first long form (outside of some speeches) talk today and Q&A since the December 14th FOMC press conference, let’s go to the video tape (for all the old Warner Wolf fans) and see what’s changed since then. I’m not going to bother comparing today with the January FOMC meeting as they seem to have neutered meetings without a press conference …
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Passive vs Active, German Inflation, Japan Growth, Fed’s Fischer and more…
I’m not using this comment to give an opinion on the passive vs active thing but if there is ever a clear contrarian headline of a story to mark that this whole passive thing has gone way too far and things are about to change it was this passive investing piece in Marketwatch a few days ago. In case you missed it: Here's the story. I’ll leave it at …
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2/10 – Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events
Positives Initial jobless claims fell to 234k, 15k below the estimate and down from 246k last week. This is just 1k people away from matching the lowest level since 1973 and brings the 4 week average to 244k from 248k. Continuing claims, delayed by one week, rose by 15k. Mortgage applications on the week were up slightly. Purchases grew by 1.8% and are up 3.6% …
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Phenomenal for All or Just Some?
The rally yesterday in stocks after Trump said he will unveil a “phenomenal” tax plan made sense because we wanted to see him focus on what was most important and not get distracted by other noise and tweets. There remains though the issue of what will be unveiled. Will it be the Ryan plan that includes a border adjustment tax (BAT) or will that be left out and we’ll …
Jobless Claims, 30 Yr Auction, Tax Talk, Euro Bank Stocks and more…
Initial jobless claims fell to 234k, 15k below the estimate and down from 246k last week. This is just 1k people away from matching the lowest level since 1973 and brings the 4 week average to 244k from 248k. Continuing claims, delayed by one week, rose by 15k. Bottom line, there is no holiday to blame this time for the drop in claims. We have to assume that it’s …
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Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor. Each day The Boock Report provides summaries and commentary on the macro data and news that matter, with analysis of what it all means and how it fits together.