30 Year Yield Falls Below S P 500 Dividend Yield The stock market had a modest decline and treasury yields fell sharply on Tuesday. Even though August has been a volatile month, the total decline in stocks is nothing compared to the decline in yields. The best evidence of this is that the recent low
Below Trend Growth, No Recession Bears loved the July Chicago Fed National Activity index because it was negative for the 7th time in the past 8 months. It would have been 8 out of 8 if it wasn’t for the 5 basis point positive revision to the June reading. However, even with all this negativity, the
Stocks Rally On Monday On Monday, the S P 500 avoided making a new correction low as it increased 1.1%. Action has been extremely choppy in the past couple weeks as you can see from the chart below. The market has matched the rhetoric from President Trump and China on the trade war. It’s an endless
Solid Headline Durable Goods Orders Growth The July durable goods orders report is an example of headline data not matching the details of the report. New orders growth was 2.1% monthly which beat estimates for 1.2% growth. That’s great even though the June reading was revised slightly lower from 2%
Big Stock Market Swoon On Increased Trade Tensions It looks more likely that the September tariffs will go into effect as President Trump sent out a few hawkish tweets on trade. This sent the stock market plummeting on Friday, upstaging Powell’s Jackson Hole speech. The stock market almost made new
Amazing New Home Sales Revision It's always good look at the revisions to data as well as the latest numbers. Usually, I look at the latest numbers the closest. Revisions aren’t extreme and the market reacts to the latest numbers. In the case of the July new home sales report, the revision was extre
Slight Selloff As Market Awaits Jackson Hole Speech It seems like all the market cares about is Fed policy because it barely moved on Thursday even though there was a lot of economic data released, some of which I reviewed in a previous article. As I’ve discussed in previous articles, Powell is spea
Strong Leading Economic Indicators On an intermediate term basis, the Conference Board leading economic indicators report doesn’t look good, but that’s not the fault of the July monthly reading which was very strong. Specifically, it was up 0.5% monthly which beat estimates for 0.2% growth and met t
Hawkish Fed Minutes The Fed’s Minutes from its late July meeting were released on Wednesday. I think the Minutes were hawkish because the Fed was far from committing to more rate cuts even though as recently as this week, there was about a 50% chance of 3 more cuts by the end of the year.
Redbook Sales Growth Redbook same store sales growth in the week of August 17th was 4.9% which was a jump from 4.4%. This means August’s retail sales growth is tracking at a slightly lower, but still strong pace, as compared to July. This is prime shopping time for the back to school season. Each we
