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 whi
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 mo
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
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
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 headl
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 14
Weak January Retail Sales Report Lowers GDP Growth Estimates January retail sales report wasn’t great mostly because control group sales growth was revised lower and missed estimates. Even still because of the tougher comp, there wasn’t much change in the 2 year headline growth stack. There wasn’t a
Modest Thursday Decline After the number of coronavirus confirmed cases increased due to a change in methodology, the stock market fell modestly on Thursday. S P 500 was down 0.16% and the Nasdaq fell 0.14%. Russell 2000 was up 0.26% as it outperformed the large caps for the 3rd straight day. It has
Energy Boosts Headline Inflation January CPI report was more of the same type of reading we have been seeing this cycle. Inflation stayed low which means the Fed will keep rates low. Those who don’t follow this report closely will be surprised by the jump in energy inflation since oil prices cratere
Coronavirus Looms Again With its 0.65% rally on Wednesday, the S P 500 is now on a 3 day winning streak and has increased in 6 of the past 7 days. However, an updated news report on the coronavirus this evening threatens to ruin the party in stocks. Because of the new way China is measuring
