President’s Approval Rating: The chart below shows the approval ratings for all Presidents for their first 150 days in office. Trump’s approval is shown in gray. For all the talk of impeachment, his approval rating has been remarkably stable at its low levels. It doesn’t move up or down. Should it stay at these levels a… Continue reading Politics
Probability of a June rate hike at 100% once again. The big four central bank balance sheets total $19.25 trillion.
Housing Starts fall slightly. Citi and Bloomberg economic surprise indexes continue to fall. A look at the US economic uncertainty composite index. Gas prices remain stable. A look at credit spreads.
Net Positions – Why Are Six Stocks Leading This Rally? In this Net Positions, Jim Bianco takes a look at the six stocks leading the rally. Comment There is not a single clean metric to show if the stock market’s returns are concentrated in a few stocks. That is why we use several charts… Continue reading Discussing The Six Stocks Leading This Rally
Bloomberg Graphics – OPEC Reality: Saudis Delivered, Non-OPEC Didn’t. Just under a week from now, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will meet in Vienna to decide whether to extend the first oil production curbs in eight years in order to eliminate a glut. The group will evaluate data, described below, that highlights two key details:… Continue reading OPEC’s Compliance Test
Bloomberg – Investors Just Pulled the Most Cash From Small Caps in a Decade Pain in smaller stocks has some readying for selloff Investors pulled $3.5 billion from the biggest exchange-traded fund that tracks the Russell 2000 Index last week, spooked by the steepest selloff in the domestically focused stocks since before Donald Trump’s surprise… Continue reading U.S. Small Cap Outflows
Comment As the chart above shows, the market has priced in a June rate hike as a virtual certainty. There is no need for the qualifying language used below. At this point, the market would only be shocked if the Fed failed to hike. The Wall Street Journal – Fed Minutes to Offer Clues… Continue reading What To Look For In The FOMC Minutes
The Wall Street Journal – Greg Ip: Nice 3% Target, Mr. Trump. How Will You Get There? Yet there are good reasons independent economists think the U.S. can’t return to its historic growth of 3%. The U.S. working-age population grew 1.2% a year from 1950 through 2000. With the baby boomers retiring and families shrinking, it… Continue reading The Problem With Trump’s Economics Forecast
MarketWatch.com – Caroline Baum: What exactly is Trumponomics? Already we are hearing references to “Trumponomics.” But what exactly are the priorities or objectives of a president who seems to make things up as he goes along, who says one thing one minute and contradicts himself the next, and who is neither a policy wonk nor remotely… Continue reading What Is Trumponomics?
CNBC – Bond market warning? A closely watched economic indicator just hit a postelection low The short end of the yield curve is “rising on expectations of tighter monetary policy, while the low end is more correlated to growth … so I think the case could be made that the curve continues to narrow,” Oppenheimer… Continue reading The 2/10 Spread Is At Its Lowest Level Since October
Blackrock Blog – Jeffrey Rosenberg: What the bond markets tell us about reflation We see stable global growth and inflation helping the Federal Reserve make good on its promise to Normalize normalization. Global developed bond yields appear vulnerable to further increases as French political risk fades, leaving improving fundamentals as a longer run driver for… Continue reading Pricing In Reflation
The New York Post – John Crudele: How companies lie about earnings to meet Wall Street expectations Everyone knows by now that companies can — and do — manipulate their per-share earnings to meet Wall Street expectations. But I’ve always worked on the assumption that corporate revenues were pure numbers — without much manipulation going on… Continue reading Gaming Earnings