It was all over the news last week. Inflation has arrived. The CPI was hotter than expected. The PPI was even hotter. Import prices were up and export prices were up more. It was impossible to miss the inflation story last week. Stocks got the message and sold off on the hot CPI and finished the week lower for a [...]
There's an old saying on Wall Street that one should "buy the rumor, sell the news", a pithy way to express the efficient market theorem. By the time an event arrives, whatever it may be, the market will have fully digested the news and incorporated it into current prices. And then the market will move on to anticipating the next [...]
This is a holiday-shortened week in the US but there is some important data on tap. Retail sales are expected to show a month-to-month rise for the first time since September. Year-over-year numbers remain pretty subdued and likely will until life returns to something resembling normal. Producer prices will likely rise but inflation continues its benign ways. It is likely [...]
It’s only a confusing when you just accept the booming economy of the unemployment rate. From this perspective, 2018 was, and more so 2019 is, a downright conundrum. By all mainstream accounts, this just shouldn’t be happening. Home sales are running at a pace similar to 2015 levels – even with exceptionally low mortgage rates, a record number of jobs [...]
In the world of assets classes, I don’t believe it is equities which hold the Federal Reserve’s attention. After the 2006-11 debacle, the big bust, you can at least understand why policymakers might be more attuned to real estate no matter how the NYSE trades. It may be a decade ago, but that’s the one thing out of the Global [...]
July 2018 was another disappointing month in the housing market. Sales of existing homes, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), declined again last month. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.34 million, it was the lowest level of resales in two years. Apart from the distortions last year in the aftermath of the big Gulf Coast storms, the [...]
Total construction spending rose 5.5% year-over-year (unadjusted) in June 2018. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, spending fell rather sharply two months ago though that doesn’t really matter given the short-term noise of month-to-month changes. The real problem is this 5.5% given that public construction has been moving higher since last year’s big hurricanes. In other words, it’s the private channel that [...]
One way to read the inversion in eurodollar futures is that the market expects the Federal Reserve to ignore growing economic and financial concerns. There is a very reasonable basis for this structure given recent history. Central bankers and Economists have shown a remarkable, and remarkably consistent, ability to talk themselves out of any negative indications. This is the idea [...]
How quickly things change in these markets. In the report two weeks ago, the markets reflected a pretty obvious slowing in the global economy. In the course of two weeks, what seemed obvious has been quickly reversed. The 10-year yield moved up a quick 20 basis points in just a week, a rise in nominal growth expectations that was mostly [...]
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that sales of existing homes, or resales, declined sharply in December 2017. Falling 3.6% from November (revised lower), that merely suggests what other data has been pointing toward. The hurricanes that hit the South caused distortions in economic conditions, bunching up activity into especially October and November. The lower estimates for December appear [...]
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