Stocks Near Record High The overall market rallied on Wednesday and small caps outperformed again. S P 500 was up 0.72% to 3000.93. Its record closing high is 3,025.86. A record high is coming soon. Once again, the market rose sharply in the last 10 minutes of the trading session as it was up 0.2%.
Solid MBA Applications Report MBA applications report from the week of September 6th showed the composite index had weekly growth of 2% after it fell 3.1%. This was a great report. But one has to wonder how the housing market will deal with higher rates. I don’t expect treasury yields to increase si
Another Day Where Big Caps Are Flat Small Caps Rally Once again, the S P 500 was flat as it increased just 3 basis points on Tuesday. The only interesting aspect of the trading session is that stocks rose 0.32% in the last 5 minutes. It closed at the high of the day. It was
Redbook Same Store Sales Growth Solid Again When investors heard the news that there would be a tariff on consumer goods starting in September, we thought there would be a decline in spending growth. Especially immediately after it was implemented. Then there were reports that retailers weren’t full
Small Caps Outperform Large Caps At first glance it seems like Monday’s trading session was boring because the S P 500 fell 1 basis point and there weren’t any major economic reports, nor were there tweets from Trump on the trade war. However, there was some interesting movement below the surface. N
Manufacturing Labor Market Growth in hours worked gives us another layer of information on the labor market besides just growth in payrolls. It combines the length of the workweek with growth in payrolls. In the August BLS report, aggregate hours worked in the manufacturing sector improved 0.5% mont
S P 500 Nears Record High Even though the BLS report missed expectations, the S P 500 managed to eke out a small gain. It ended this solid week on a high note. S P 500 was up 9 basis points on Friday and 1.78% on the 4 day week. It’s up 18.82% year to date and down
Big Bounce Back In Non-Manufacturing ISM PMI As you can see from the chart below, the ISM services PMI rose from 53.7 to 56.4 in August which was a nice bounce back. It ended the index’s 2 month losing streak. This beat estimates for 54 and the high end of the estimate range which was
Big Rally On Trade News Stocks rallied sharply on Thursday as they got close to the high end of their recent range. The S P 500 was up 1.3%. It’s now only down 1.65% from its record high in July. We’ve had a nice combination of positive news on trade, the Hong Kong protests, and Brexit.
High Job Cuts Again There have been a few Challenger Job Cut reports this year that have caused investors to worry about the labor market. Most were early in the year. The August reading was another worrisome signal although it wasn’t as bad as the big spikes this winter. Specifically, job cuts incr
