Hurricane Michael Hits Florida As A Category 4 Storm
Hurricane Michael Makes Landfall In a few days, hurricane Michael went from nothing to a storm with 155 mile per hour winds. Unlike hurricane Florence, the winds increased as it went ashore. The good news is this is a quick moving, small storm. The hurricane force winds only extended for 30 miles. The flooding from…
Small Caps Underperform In October & Materials Crater On Tuesday
Small Caps Continue Downtrend - Flat Market The S&P 500 fell 0.14% which puts it in a 4 day losing streak. There’s not much to make of this losing streak. The S&P 500 is near its record high. In fact, its outperformance of small caps is more notable than this mini losing streak. The Russell…
IMF Report - 2019 U.S. GDP Growth Expected To Fall To 2.5%
IMF Report Wrong On 2017 Forecasts The IMF Report offers delayed projections which means it confirms data trends we’ve been seeing for months. It’s a great summary of world growth since I don’t cover every country’s economy in my articles. Some people mistakenly view IMF Report forecasts as always being wrong. Skeptics might say the…
Wage Growth Momentum Is Still Strong
Wage Growth Momentum - Strong Wage Growth In previous articles I have discussed how strong wage growth catalyzed the increase in the 10 year yield in the past few weeks. Technically, average hourly wage growth missed estimates on a year over year basis as it fell from 2.9% to 2.8%. But this was another strong…
Housing Price Index Signals Pain
Housing Price Index - More Weakness In The Housing Market Coming? The ECRI leading home price index is yet another indicator on the housing market which has gone negative. Higher interest rates are hurting home prices. And, the weakness in housing can easily lead to lower rates as economic growth slows. People’s primary house is…
Spiking Mortgage Rates Hurt Housing Market
Spiking Mortgage Rates - Soaring Housing was weak this summer because affordability was a problem. Real wage growth basically treaded water while interest rates soared. That’s not a recipe for strength in housing. When you add in the increased costs for metals because of the tariffs, we’re in an unusually terrible situation for homebuilder stocks.…
10 Year Yield Hits 3.17%
10 Year Yield - Stocks Stay High Despite High Yields The Russell 2000 finally increased after a terrible run; it was up 0.92%. The overall stock market was up slightly as the S&P 500 was up just 7 basis points. The real action today was in the treasury market. An important point about the stock market…
ISM PMI - Best Reading Since 1998
ISM PMI - Best Reading Since 1998 The non-manufacturing PMI was 61.6 which surpassed the consensus of 58. Out of 65 economists making predictions, the highest estimate was 59.6. This was a 5 standard deviation beat. It was much better than the prior PMI which was 58.5. As you can see below, this was the…
4.1% GDP Growth Expected Because Of Inventory Investment
4.1% GDP Growth Expected The Atlanta Fed Nowcast expects 4.1% Q3 GDP growth which is up from 3.6%. The government construction spending growth caused the Atlanta Fed Q3 estimate for real government spending growth to increase from 1% to 1.7%. The estimate for real personal consumption expenditures increased from 3.5% to 3.7% because of the…
Amazon Raises Its Minimum Wage To $15 Per Hour
Amazon Raises Its Minimum Wage To $15 Retail stocks fell because Amazon announced it will raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour. Amazon stock fell 1.65% and Gap stock fell 4.91%. The minimum wage is starting on November 1st. It will affect 250,000 of Amazon’s current employees which is 40% of its global workforce.…
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