Leading Index Yearly Growth Rate Turns Positive
Leading Index - Strong Chinese Exports, But Imports Fall Leading Index - China is starting to turn around as the government stimulus is working. Dollar denominated exports increased 14.2% in March on a year over year basis. That almost doubled estimates for a 7.3% increase. The weak part of this trade report was that imports…
2% Core CPI Matches Fed’s Target
2% Core CPI - Stocks Rebound On Wednesday So much for the potential correction because stocks were overbought. On Wednesday, S&P 500 rallied 0.35%, Nasdaq increased 0.69%, and Russell 2000 increased 1.4%. The market is once again within striking distance of its all-time high. It might even reach that level next week. S&P 500 needs…
Housing Purchase Applications - 13% Yearly Growth
Housing Purchase Applications - Fed Minutes Consistent With Previous Statements Before getting into Housing Purchase Applications, let's discuss the recent Fed minutes. Fed did its job early this year by becoming move dovish in the face of weak economic reports. Current policy is in the sweet spot where inflation won’t spike and the economy probably will…
Stocks End Streak of Winning
Stocks End Streak - Finally Stocks Fall It has been an amazing year for stocks, but even in a great year stocks don’t increase every day. Recent winning streak ended at 8 as S&P 500 fell 0.61% on Tuesday. Nasdaq fell 0.56%, Russell 2000 fell 1.22%, and VIX increased 8.35%. Traders were intensely short the VIX…
Job Openings Plummet In February
Job Openings - Redbook Same Store Sales Growth Improves Before getting into job openings, let's review the Redbook. In the week of April 6th, Redbook yearly same store sales growth improved from 4.4% to 4.8%. That’s obviously good news. But keep in mind, last week the Redbook same store sales growth rate fell from 5.3%. …
Winning Streak - S&P 500 On An 8 Day 2017 Throwback
Winning Streak - Throwback To 2017 The stock market is riding a rally as if it is back in 2017 when stocks almost never fell. As you can see from the chart below, the S&P 500 is on an 8 day winning streak which is the longest streak since October 2017. The market hasn’t been…
Manufacturing Weakness Doesn’t Mean A Recession
Manufacturing Weakness - Consumer Credit Before getting into manufacturing weakness, let's talk about consumer credit. Consumer credit expansion in February was below that of January as it was $15.2 billion which missed estimates for $17 billion. January’s expansion was revised higher from $17 billion to $17.7 billion. I’m looking forward to the Q1 quarterly debt…
S&P 500 Down Just 1.3% From September 2018 Record High
S&P 500 Down - Yet An Amazing April First week of April was spectacular for stocks as the S&P 500 increased 2.06%. On Friday, the stock market applauded the solid jobs report. S&P 500 increased 0.46%, Nasdaq increased 0.59%, and Russell 2000 increased 0.96%. The VIX fell 5.6% to 12.82. VIX doesn’t have much room…
March Labor Report Perfect
March Labor Report - A Perfect Jobs Report March Labor Report - A terrible February jobs report was only marginally revised higher as it increased from 20,000 to 33,000. Keep in mind, we still have another revision coming next month. By that point, February will be long gone. Investors worried about the 2nd half of 2019…
Mortgage Rates Drop The Most In Over 10 Years
Mortgage Rates - Stocks Set To Have Best Q1 Since 1998 Before getting into mortgage rates, let's review the current market. Technically speaking, each modest correction in the market is setting it up better to reach its record high. The big decline last Friday and the swings this week have kept the bulls honest even…
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