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.…

Trade Deal - Canada and America Agree

Trade Deal - U.S. Makes A Trade Deal With Canada Last Friday, it looked unlikely that America and Canada would reach the September 30th deadline to make a trade deal. But it happened on Sunday night. The action on Monday makes perfect sense as the Dow increased 0.73% and the Russell 2000 fell 1.39%. America…

Global Manufacturing Hits A 22 Month Low

Global Manufacturing - Markit PMI Matches Highest Estimate The Markit global manufacturing PMI beat estimates and increased from August. The ISM PMI did the reverse. Prior to this set of reports, the ISM reports have been wildly optimistic. But the Markit ones have shown weakness. Let’s review the Markit report first. The September flash Markit…

Healthcare Sector Increases 14.1% In Q3

Healthcare Sector - Without GE Dow Increases 9.3% Healthcare was the best sector in Q3 as it increased 14.1%. That was its best quarter since Q3 2013. The next two best sectors were the industrials and tech which were up 9.7% and 8.5%. While tech has changed its makeup, Apple remains in the sector. Apple…

Elon Musk Charged With Fraud By The SEC

Elon Musk Charged With Fraud The biggest news on Thursday was that Elon Musk is being charged with fraud by the SEC. This caused Tesla stock to fall 12.66% after hours. The image below explains the SEC’s case against Musk. It pertains to the August 7th tweet where he stated “Am considering taking Tesla private…

Jobless Claims Spike 12,000 Mostly Due To Hurricane Florence

Jobless Claims - Hurricane Florence Boosts Jobless Claims As I predicted, the jobless claims report was the first one to show weakness related to hurricane Florence. Jobless claims were 214,000 which was a 12,000 increase from the previous week. The 4 week moving average only increased 250 to 206,250. It was 1,000 higher than the…

Stocks Fall After Fed Hikes Rates

Stocks Fall - Bank Stocks Fall Along With Treasury Yields The action on Wednesday was interesting. Both the sectors that like rate hikes and the sectors that don’t like rate hikes did poorly. The financials like rate hikes. However, they fell 0.99%, possibly because the Fed removed the term ‘accommodative’ from the statement. This pushes…

Hawkish Hike for Fed

Hawkish Hike This was a hawkish hike as the Fed increased its economic projections. We no longer need to review the changes to the FOMC statement line by line, because it has shrunk since Powell has taken the helm as chair. There was one change, other than the month and policy change. This continued the…