Global Trade War - What It Would Do To The Economy

Global Trade War - Tight Labor Versus Margins Global Trade War - The labor market is relatively tight, although the prime age labor force participation rate is still below the previous 3 cycle peaks. The relatively tight labor market hasn’t led to heightened inflation. April core CPI was only 2.07%. That has allowed the Fed…

Uber IPO Was A Record Flop

Uber IPO - Stocks Recover On Friday After Positive Trade Talks Before getting into Uber IPO, let's review trade news. There seems to be a pattern with trade talks. President Trump seems to talk tough on trade when Chinese markets are open, to send them lower. And then talks positive on trade when American markets…

Trade War Could Cause A Global Recession

Trade War - March Deficit Increases Slightly Trade War - International trade report matters much more than usual because of the ongoing trade negotiations with China. In April, China had a $21.01 billion surplus with America which was more than its overall surplus. This latest American trade report is from March.  America had a deficit…

Trade Swoon - Is The Market Ready?

Is This A Correction? Trade Swoon - This has been a spectacular year for stocks, but even in big up years, there are usually corrections. 2017 was a rare example where there weren’t many declines and none became corrections. It’s possible that the correction I predicted to occur in May is here.  S&P 500 is…

March Hiring Falls 0.6% From February

Redbook Same Store Sales Growth Improves March Hiring - before we talk about hiring in March, let's review Redbook's same store sales. Real consumption growth was only 1.2% in Q1. GDP growth was boosted by trade and inventories. That type of weak consumer spending growth is near recessionary levels.  That’s why the Redbook weekly readings…

Tariff Rate - President Trump Ready To Raise To 25% On Friday

Tariff Rate - Stocks Fall Slightly Tariff Rate - The S&P 500 fell 0.16% on Wednesday as investors feared the outcome of the trade negotiations with China. That slight decline masks the sharp decline at the end of the trading session where the S&P 500 fell 0.57% in the last half hour. On the day,…

April Jobs Report Beats Estimates, But Underlying Data Was Weak

April Jobs Report - Creation Beats Estimates April Jobs Report - Job creation in April beat estimates and the past 2 reports saw positive combined revisions of 16,000. However, the details of this report weren’t great as I’ll review later in this article.  As you can see from the chart below, job creation was 263,000…

Stocks Dive On Trade Worries & Stay Down This Time

Stocks Dive Sharply Stocks Dive - Investors were correct to be bearish on stocks in the near term. But we were wrong to say the trade news wouldn’t affect stocks. Trade worries caused a big decline on Tuesday after the market mostly recovered from its trade related selloff on Monday. This time the losses remained…

Weak Service Sector April PMIs

ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI Misses Estimates Weak Service Sector - Most of the economic data is coming in weak and missing expectations. With the market mostly past earnings season, these reports should be highlighted, causing stocks to fall. As you can see from the chart below, the April ISM non-manufacturing PMI fell from 56.1 to 55.5…

Initial Trade War Scare - Stocks Mostly Recover

Initial Trade War Scare - Big Trade Related Swing Initial Trade War Scare - We’ve heard government officials repeatedly say the trade negotiations with China were going smoothly and a deal was near completion. We learned this weekend that’s not the case. To be clear, stocks have been helped by this positive rhetoric, but it hasn’t…