New Record High As Nothing Can Keep A Lid On Stocks
Today was an unusual day in the stock market because the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq all hit a record high even though there was very bad economic data released. The Dow had its best week since December. Even the Russell 2000 has been getting in on the party. The Russell 2000 is up 5.48% […]
Hurricane Harvey & Irma Disrupt The Labor Market
The Citi Surprise index has rallied back to near 0. Keep this in mind when you hear bears claiming the Citi Surprise index is doing badly. It’s a terrible economic indicator as the economy was strong in the first half, especially in Q2 where GDP growth was 3.0%. As you can see from the second […]
Small Businesses Remain Hugely Optimistic
The Chinese economy has been improving this year, but unfortunately that trend reversed course in the latest batch of data. The chart below breaks down the three data points which were released Wednesday night NYC time. Retail sales were up 10.1% year over year. Obviously, that’s great growth by American standards. However, it missed expectations […]
Credit Growth Stalls: Bad Sign For 2018 Economy?
The rampage in stocks knows no bounds. The Nasdaq, Dow, and S&P 500 all hit record highs on Wednesday even though Apple was down on the day. As you can see from the chart below, the total returns in this bull market just passed the 1950s rally. This is now the third largest rally in […]
Is Bitcoin Under-Owned?
Bitcoin Under-Owned? As we discussed in the last article, institutional investors said Bitcoin was the most overvalued security in the world. Since my last post, the price of Bitcoin has fallen below $4,000. Some of the speculation has left the market. The chart below gives you an additional way to look at Bitcoin. It compares […]
Low Paid Workers Getting A Raise
A previous article mentioned how low skilled workers are seeing more income growth than middle skilled and highly skilled workers. The chart below shows this trend in a different light. As you can see, those making less than $17 an hour are seeing more income growth than those making over $25 an hour. Part of […]
Q3 Earnings Estimates Fall As Stocks Soar
Chinese Economy Driving U.S. Market FactSet released its updated aggregate quarterly earnings report. They broke down firms with a large amount of Asian exposure in the chart below. As you can see, the firms with over 40% of sales in Asia outperformed those who only have 20% exposure to Asia. The group with 20% of […]
Hurricanes Shouldn’t Affect Fed Policy At Meeting Next Week
European Junk Bonds Are Expensive There is a noticeable difference between the European high yield debt market and U.S. treasuries. High yield debt no longer has a high yield in Europe and America as European junk bond yields are close to the AAA rated U.S. debt. That’s because of relentless ECB corporate bond buying which […]
1990s Bubble But In Reverse
Update On ECB Bond Buying A new milestone is about to be reached in the ECB’s bond buying program. There have now been 998 bonds bought by the ECB. You can see the effects in the chart below. The BB rated euro high yield bond index is now at almost the same yield as the […]
AAPL Sends The Nasdaq Lower
Apple Sells Off The stock market ended Friday mixed as the Nasdaq was the biggest sore spot, falling 0.59%. As I highlighted in previous articles, Apple usually falls right before the unveiling of its new phone. The 1.63% decline on Friday added to the Nasdaq’s woes. The stock is now down 3.30% off its all-time […]