Earnings Estimates Are Faltering
Existing Home Sales Fall Slightly In January, existing home sales fell from 5.53 million to 5.46 million which was a 1.3% monthly decline. Sales beat estimates by 10,000 and were revised 10,000 lower in December. As you can see from the chart below, the sales rate has been consistent for the past 4 years other…
30 Year Yield Falls To A Record Low
Back To Back Declines The stock market wasn’t heavily overbought heading into the recent back to back declines. But it was getting expensive as the S&P 500’s forward PE ratio was about 19. When stocks or a market are expensive, anything can take them lower. If the market starts to realize Bernie might win the…
Is The Economy Contracting?
Below 50 Markit PMI! It was wrong in to predict that the Markit manufacturing PMI would beat estimates. This February flash reading had an across the board miss. It was correct that outside of the Boeing 737 Max delays and the coronavirus the manufacturing sector is doing well. The latter had a significant impact on…
Morning Crash: Here Are The Sellers!
Mini Crash It’s quite amazing that the day after Jim Cramer asked where the sellers were the market has a mini crash. S&P 500 fell 1.23% from peak to trough in 50 minutes on Thursday morning. That confused traders who didn’t see it coming. After the market gapped down, traders bought the dip so the…
Manufacturing Spikes & 69% Of Employers See Talent Shortage
Big Spike In Philly Fed It appears that the manufacturing sector is turning around. It's coming true despite the weakness in China catalyzed by the coronavirus. Empire Fed index increased sharply and now the Empire Fed index increased too. General business conditions index was up from 17 to 36.7 which was its highest reading in…
Where Are The Sellers??
January Fed Minutes January Minutes suggested the Fed won’t be moving rates anytime soon. That’s a reasonable assessment since inflation is low, but increasing, trade worries have diminished, and equity prices are high. We are living in a so-called Goldilocks economy which means the Fed shouldn’t move in the near term. Specifically, the Minutes stated,…
Housing Market Is On Fire
Redbook Sales Growth Improves Consumer spending growth has been humming along just fine based on the recent retail sales reports. They haven’t been amazing, but they are good enough to keep the expansion going. Because other aspects of the economy are weak, real final sales growth was low in Q4 and might be that way…
Apple Warns About Sales Due To Coronavirus & Tesla Explodes Higher
Stocks Mixed As Apple Warns About Coronavirus The stock market was hurt by Apple’s coronavirus related warning as the S&P 500 fell 0.29%. It’s interesting that the Nasdaq was up 2 basis points since it’s traditionally considered tech heavy. Obviously, Apple is in all major indexes except the Russell 2000. Coronavirus’ growth rate has been…
Consumers Love The Stock Market
Strong Preliminary February Consumer Sentiment Consumer confidence readings were all fantastic in January. But that didn’t lead to a great retail sales report. Yearly growth was bogged down by online sales growth. It had a big sequential decline, but obviously still had yearly growth above the headline reading. However, that won’t stop me from continuing…
Lower Taxes On Investors?
Update On The Coronavirus Currently, Hubei has a work suspension until February 20th. Obviously, the best case scenario is the suspension is lifted shortly. But that might not happen if deaths continue to rise along with confirmed cases. Specifically, as of February 14th the number of deaths rose 143 to 1,523 and the number of confirmed…