Very Weak Chicago Fed Business Barometer Recession fears are back on the table with the latest weak ISM manufacturing PMI. The market under-reacted to weak economic reports earlier in the year; now it is overreacting to them. Q3 was always going to be a weak quarter as I highlighted at the start of
Stocks Fall Sharply On Disappointing ISM PMI September ISM PMI was the weakest since June 2009. This sent stocks careening lower after they had initially rallied slightly because of the encouraging Markit PMI. It’s clear which PMI the market follows the closest. Markit PMI has double the sample size
Strong Redbook Growth The order of importance in terms of measurements of consumer spending from least important to most important are the following: Redbook, consumer confidence, retail sales, and PCE. However, the Redbook report is the most updated, so I follow it. Redbook results show sales growt
Q3 Ends On A High Note With its modest rally on Monday, the stock market closed out the quarter positively, continuing this great year. S P 500 moved closer to 3,000 which it has been stuck near for weeks. Anyone who claims to look at stock returns on a yearly basis instead of year to date
Slightly Improved Consumer Confidence Shocking August consumer confidence reading which caused everyone to discuss the impact of tariffs was updated on Friday. It showed a modest improvement. At first, the University of Michigan index seemed important because August retail sales growth was strong. W
Stocks End The Week Lower Stocks fell on Friday because the White House is considering blocking all US investments in China. To me, this seems like a lot of speculation and not much actual news. This report stated the discussion is in its preliminary stages and nothing has been decided. There also i
Real Consumption Growth Falls In August, real disposable personal income growth was solid, but real consumption growth weakened. That signals a decline in confidence as was shown in the August University of Michigan report. Consumption growth in the PCE report wasn’t consistent with the solid retail
Slight Decline On Thursday: Peloton IPOs Stocks declined slightly on Thursday, although, I think they would have risen if the news about the timing of the U.S. China talks had come out before the close. Specifically, the S P 500 fell 0.24% which put it near where it has been for most of the month. O
Another Great Housing Market Report Yet another solid housing market report came out in the Pending Home Sales index. The July reading wasn’t that great as the index fell 2.5% to 105.6. But the August index was strong as it increased 1.6% to 107.3. This makes it look like the new home sales report a
Stocks Regain Impeachment Inquiry Losses It’s no surprise stocks rallied on Wednesday, regaining their impeachment related losses. The market doesn’t see President Trump being removed from office, so it isn’t selling off. As you can see from the table below, the returns after Nixon and Clinton were
