Small Business Optimism Rebounds Slightly
Small Business Optimism - Another Rally Tuesday The stock market has almost recovered all the losses from the minor correction last week. On Tuesday, S&P 500 increased 0.3%, Nasdaq increased 0.44%, and Russell 2000 was up 6 basis points. Just like what happened 3 times last fall, the S&P 500 has had trouble around the…
Core CPI Inflation Falls Modestly, Supporting Fed Pause
Core CPI Inflation - Redbook Same Store Sales Improve Slightly Core CPI Inflation - Redbook same store sales growth was much quicker than retail sales growth in December and January. Investors are interested in seeing if this relationship continues. This would imply retail sales growth being weaker in February since Redbook sales growth fell. I…
Retail Sales Improve In January
Retail Sales Improve - Stocks Rebound On Monday It’s not a surprise stocks rebounded sharply on Monday because they had fallen 5 days in a row. Stocks are constantly reacting to previous overreactions. Dow even rallied 0.79% despite Boeing’s 5.33% decline. This occurred because its 737 MAX 8 plane crashed in Ethiopia killing 157 people. …
Aggregate Income Growth Falls Sharply
Aggregate Income Growth Falls Just because the February labor report could be a blip doesn’t mean we shouldn’t review it. To be fair, the January labor report was also a blip since it’s highly unlikely job creation averages above 250,000 in 2019 let alone the 311,000 jobs created in January. The February report doesn’t signal…
5 Day Losing Streak for Stocks
5 Day Losing Streak The stock market fell on Friday for the 5th time in a row. Stocks rebounded from the low on the day to only close modestly lower. Traders acted rationally in that they didn’t sell stocks vehemently on the BLS miss. They realized these reports can be volatile, so stocks didn’t crash. From…
Housing Starts Beat Estimates, But Job Creation Misses By A Mile
Housing Starts Improve in January The January housing report improved partially because the California wildfires didn’t crush starts like they did in December. Most investors knew the weather hurt results. But I we weren't sure by how much because the housing market also was weak in December. This was due to cyclical reasons and starts…
Stocks Fall 4 Straight Days
Stocks Fall - Extend Losing Streak The stock market sold off for the 4th straight time on Thursday. S&P 500 fell 0.81%, Nasdaq fell 1.13%, and Russell 2000 fell 0.86%. Personally, I find the headline that the stock market fell on fears of an economic slowdown humorous. There were plenty of bad economic reports in January and…
3 Bear Markets Since 2009
3 Bear Markets - An Explosion Bears love to mention how the economy is due for a recession and the stock market is due for a collapse. That’s a mistake because there have been a few slowdowns and technical bear markets this cycle. Technically, there is no numerical definition of what makes a recession. Some…
Solid ADP Report Signals Strong BLS Reading Ahead
Solid ADP Report - Small Caps Selloff The stock market continued its selloff on Wednesday. S&P 500 fell 0.65%, Nasdaq fell 0.93%, and Russell 2000 fell a whopping 2.01%. Finally, the stock market has had a mini-correction as the S&P 500 is down 1.15% from its closing high on Friday. As you can see from…
Markit Expects 2.6% Q1 GDP Growth
Markit - Weak Construction Spending December construction spending report was weak. But probably not the reason stocks fell. Stocks entered the week very overbought. No matter if economic reports beat or missed estimates, stocks would be on a path lower. Construction spending report showed monthly growth was -0.6% which missed estimates for 0.3% growth and…