Range Maintained The S P 500’s range was maintained on Wednesday as it reversed the losses from Tuesday. The choppy action got choppier. You can see in the chart below how the market has moved nowhere ever since its decline in early August. This is an example of a sideways correction. You can debate
No Impact From Tariffs On Consumer Spending Yet Unless the boost in consumer spending growth in the last 2 weeks of August is related to pre-buying before the tariffs go into effect, the consumer is ignoring the tariffs and spending money normally. Specifically, the Redbook yearly same store sales g
Weak PMIs and Trade War Send Stocks Lower The stock market started what is the worst month on average (September) with a loss as the S P 500 fell 0.69% on Tuesday. The Nasdaq fell 1.11% and the Russell 2000 fell 1.51%. The VIX was up 0.68 to 19.66 as the market is still technically in
Weak ISM Manufacturing Report Many investors were too pessimistic about the July ISM manufacturing PMI and slightly too optimistic about the August report. It’s possible that this ISM PMI is slightly too negative, but that misses the point. Manufacturing sector is in a slowdown and possibly a recess
Market Ends Great Weak Subpar Month The stock market ended up marginally on Friday which closed an amazing week and the 2nd down month of the year. The S P 500 was up 6 basis points on Friday and 2.79% on the week. The trading session was interesting much like it was this month. The S P
Weak Pending Home Sales We have seen solid housing stats recently as new home sales in June hit a record high. However, the pending home sales index wasn’t part of this group of reports. After a good reading of 108.3 in June, the index fell 2.5% to 105.6 as you can see from the chart
Stocks Rally Again On Trade Talks It seems like we are going around in circles with this trade situation. New tariffs tend to lead to new negotiations on trade. It’s a tap dance. This isn’t a no holds barred trade war where each side wants to destroy the other. Instead each side is issuing tariffs
First Q2 GDP Revision The Q2 GDP revision was very interesting even though headline growth barely changed. Specifically, real quarter over quarter growth fell from 2.1% to 2% which met estimates. Real consumer spending growth, which was already very strong, was revised even higher. It went from 4.3%
Choppy Trading Action Continues The stock market rallied modestly on Wednesday as the choppy trading action continued. The S P 500 was up 0.65%, the Nasdaq was up 0.38%, and the Russell 2000 was up 1.15%. The VIX was down 0.96 to 19.35 which still shows the market is in a correction. The CNN fear an
Surprisingly Solid ISM PMI Likely Coming Based on the solid regional Fed manufacturing reports, the ISM manufacturing PMI will probably show modest sequential improvement. I expect the PMI to be from 51 to 53. The July reading was 51.2. August ISM PMI comes out on Tuesday. The chart below shows the
