Showing posts with label durable goods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label durable goods. Show all posts

Monday, May 14, 2018

Dow Gains For 8th Straight Day; Tuesday Data Reads Important

Stocks started the week on a strong note, only to see the rally fade as the session wore on, leaving the indices with marginal gains, led by the Dow Industrials with a 0.27% rise, the eighth straight trading day in which the Dow has recorded a positive close.

Higher by 163 points in the 11:00 am hour, Dow stocks gave back nearly 100 points, or roughly two-fifths of their value by the end of the day.

With most major companies having already reported first quarter earnings, this may turn into a rather dull week, though Tuesday's trifecta of economic data releases - NY Fed Manufacturing, Retail Sales, and Durable Goods - may provide suitable trading fodder.

On Wednesday, Macy's (M) reports prior to the market open, while Cisco Systems (CSCO) reports after the close.

Thursday may be the most impactful session, as retailers Wal-Mart (WMT), Nordstrom (JWN), and JC Penney (JCP) each report before the opening bell.

Thus far, nearly at the halfway point of the month, "sell in May" has not been the preferred trading regimen. Rather, a family strong counter-rally has been tearing along, leaving the Dow at its best level in nearly two months.

Dow Jones Industrial Average May Scorecard:

Date Close Gain/Loss Cum. G/L
5/1/18 24,099.05 -64.10 -64.10
5/2/18 23,924.98 -174.07 -238.17
5/3/18 23,930.15 +5.17 -233.00
5/4/18 24,262.51 +332.36 +99.36
5/7/18 24,357.32 +94.81 +194.17
5/8/18 24,360.21 +2.89 +197.06
5/9/18 24,542.54 +182.33 +379.39
5/10/18 24,739.53 +196.99 +576.38
5/11/18 24,831.17 +91.64 +668.02
5/14/18 24,899.41 +68.24 +736.26

At the Close, Monday, May 14, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 24,899.41, +68.24 (+0.27%)
NASDAQ: 7,411.32, +8.43 (+0.11%)
S&P 500: 2,730.13, +2.41 (+0.09%)
NYSE Composite: 12,772.04, +10.22 (+0.08%)

Friday, March 25, 2016

Durable Goods Not So Good; Stocks End Five-Week-Long Rally; GDP Is Bogus

Markets are closed on Friday in observance of Good Friday (who said we weren't a religious nation?), so the paltry returns on equites ended a dull week in the red, the first time a week has ended negative since mid-February.

Prior to the open on Thursday, durable goods for February were released and the numbers were far from encouraging.

Durable Goods New Orders (Ex-Transports) fell 0.5% YoY, extending its losing streak to 13 months. All segments of the durable goods report saw negative month-over-month direction with headline -2.8%. Prior data was revised lower, Capital goods orders fell more than expected (-1.8% MoM).

Durable goods new orders down -2.8%, exp. -3.0%; prior revised down to 4.2% for Jan. from 4.7%
New orders ex-trans. down 1%, Exp. -0.3%; prior revised to 1.2% from 1.7%
Capital goods orders ex-aircraft down 1.8%, Exp. -0.5%, prior revised to 3.1% from 3.4%
Capital goods shipments ex-aircraft down 1.1%, Exp. +0.3%, prior revised to -1.3% from -0.4%

That was about all the market could stand and not puke up more gains.

On Friday, with markets closed, the government released the final estimate for 4th quarter 2015 GDP, posting a figure that was above all estimates, a suspicious gain of 1.4%. This spurious number followed a first estimate of 0.7% in January and a second estimate at an even 1.0% in February. Apparently, everything is improving in the alternate reality that is Washington D.C. (please, please, indict Hillary). It has been pointed out by various writers that GDP is a poor measurement of the health of an economy. Such as this current reading, which is heavily influenced by health care costs and soaring rents, in addition to the hedonic adjustments and other blunt instruments of deception, the numbers end up meaning little in terms of the common man, woman or family.

Lastly, we'd like to share this fine post from the blog Viable Opposition, with readers of Money Daily:

The Long Wave and the Failure of Central Banks. Highly recommended reading and a great chart at the end.

Posts such as this - and the general appeal of the blog overall - points up why the establishment is failing and fearful of the rising tide of populism. Bloggers don't get paid for appearances on CNBC or Bloomberg but their views and opinions are often superior, better researched, unbiased and non-political than what the mainstream media tries to sell as gospel.

God (or Donald Trump) save us.

For the week:
Dow: -86.57 (0.49%)
S&P 500: -13.64 (0.67%)
NASDAQ: -22.14 (0.46%)

Thursday's Finish:
S&P 500: 2,035.94, -0.77 (0.04%)
Dow: 17,515.73, +13.14 (0.08%)
NASDAQ: 4,773.50, +4.64 (0.10%)

Crude Oil 39.63 -0.40% Gold 1,217.20 -0.56% EUR/USD 1.1180 -0.02% 10-Yr Bond 1.90 +1.33% Corn 369.25 +0.20% Copper 2.24 -0.02% Silver 15.19 -0.57% Natural Gas 1.89 +1.12% Russell 2000 1,079.54 +0.36% VIX 14.73 -1.41% BATS 1000 20,682.61 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4152 +0.23% USD/JPY 112.8450 +0.42%

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Stocks Bounce, Reasons Unknown, 10-Year Note Yield Below Two Percent

Stocks in the US had one of their best days of the new year on Thursday, though it's difficult to put a finger on exactly why that was the case.

Data from durable goods was weak and jobless claims (unemployment) were higher, so there must be an invisible hand (see PPT, for instance) pushing stocks up.

Other oddities on the day were oil gaining to close at 33.72 per barrel and the 10-year note closing below a two percent yield, at 1.985%, which normally would signal a rout in equities.

This is what one gets when markets are endlessly manipulated by government forces and the Federal Reserve.

Trade cautiously.

S&P 500: 1,893.36, +10.41 (0.55%)
Dow: 16,069.64, +125.18 (0.79%)
NASDAQ: 4,506.68, +38.51 (0.86%)

Crude Oil 33.72 +4.40% Gold 1,114.10 -0.15% EUR/USD 1.0940 +0.36% 10-Yr Bond 1.9850 -0.80% Corn 365.75 -0.95% Copper 2.05 -0.53% Silver 14.24 -1.48% Natural Gas 2.22 +3.15% Russell 2000 1,003.27 +0.05% VIX 22.42 -2.99% BATS 1000 20,209.43 +0.62% GBP/USD 1.4356 +0.77% USD/JPY 118.8150 +0.20%

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Warren Buffet Really Gets Under Your Skin; Big Market Decline Probably Means Nothing

Warrenn Buffett bears a
striking resemblance to the Wizard of Oz.
Announced today, the merger of Kraft and Heinz creates the fifth largest food company in the world and the third-largest in North America.

At the center of this mega-merger is none other than America's cuddliest billionaire, Warren Buffett and his squid-like Berkshire-Hathaway corporation. With this, Buffett now touches nearly all aspects of the average American's daily life, and, most essentially his or her food consumption.

Buffett, it was pointed out by a wily poster on a popular financial website, needs only to buy a significant interest in Monsanto or ADM and Newcomer Funeral Homes and he would have his had firmly in a "cradle to grave" solution for every man and woman in the United States, growing GMO-laced food products which deny nutrition and selling them nationally, slowly killing humans, and then taking a share of their post-breathing lives with embalming, burying or cremation.

Thus, Mr. Buffett has finally gotten under the skin of the average American consumer, and not in a good way. The combination of Heinz (John Kerry's wife, Theresa Heinz is a major owner) and Kraft would have been subject to severe scrutiny by regulators under an effective anti-trust regime, but the antiquated notion of competition has been slowly squeezed from the national conscience long ago.

In our new dystopian world, we will have but a few providers of every necessary service. Reference the merger of Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable, Staples and Office Depot, et. al. Fewer choices, fewer decisions to make. What a wonderful world.

As far as the massive market declines on the day are concerned, they are probably about the same as the last dozen or twenty or so that have occurred since March of 2009, when the current bull market began when the FASB abandoned all reason and did away with mark-to-market accounting. Since then it's been all fraud, all the time, with no end in sight.

Today's big dips in stocks are nothing more than a continuum of the controlled demolition of the global economy, led by the United States stock markets. Sell-offs are nothing more than profit-taking efforts by the controlling interests and their whiz-bang computers, to be followed, in short order, by concentrated buying and new all-time highs.

Nothing new under the sun. And nothing to see here. Move along, now.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Fed predicts the first quarter 2015 GDP growth at 0.2%, WTI crude oil futures were up 3% on the day in the face of a string of the largest crude stockpile supply growth ever, but likely the cause/result of a falling dollar. Durable goods for February were down for the second straight month.

Some of this actually makes sense, but only on a selected basis.

Dow 17,718.54, -292.60 (-1.62%)
S&P 500 2,061.05, -30.45 (-1.46%)
NASDAQ 4,876.52, -118.21 (-2.37%)

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Stocks Higher on Assumption That Fed Will NOT Immediately Taper Further

On the eve of Ben Bernanke's final FOMC meeting as Chairman of the Fed, stocks perked up in anticipation that the Fed will NOT decrease their monthly bond buying by another $10 billion.

The reasonings behind this are numerous, but mostly rely upon some poor economic data, dating back to early January's release of December non-farm payrolls, which were an admitted disaster.

Piling upon the low job creation and further decline in the workforce participation rate were Monday's new home sales for December, which fell by seven percent in the month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 414,000, as reported by the Commerce Department. In November, sales fell 3.9 percent, making December the second consecutive monthly decline.

Hopping on the decline bandwagon Tuesday morning, the Case-Shiller housing index showed a month-over-month decline in November, something professor Shiller had been warning about since last May. The Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 top cities fell 0.1% in November. A separate 10-city index also fell by 0.1%, though prices were higher by more than 13% on year-over-year data.

Perhaps the most overlooked piece of data also came forward prior to the opening bell, in the form of a massive miss on Durable Goods for December, down 4.3%. The decline was the largest since July. November was also revised lower, from 3.5% to 2.6%.

What that did for stocks was give investors further confidence that the Fed would not decrease their monthly allotment of bond purchases past the $75 billion mark come tomorrow afternoon, when the rate policy announcement is offered at 2:00 pm ET. The currency splashdown in various emerging economies - Venezuela, Argentina and Turkey, in particular - has been, in part, caused by the Fed's "tapering", withdrawing liquidity at a time when most sovereign economies are weak, at best.

A further tapering come tomorrow seems to be out of the question, according to the stock market's "bad news is good news" reaction on Tuesday. The rally could prove to be quite ephemeral, however, as stocks may very well add on more gains Wednesday after the Fed's announcement, but the condition persists. The Fed and most of their central banker brethren have been backed into a corner, wherein they cannot exit their market-propping QE policy, lest markets collapse.

With Bernanke handing over the chairmanship to Janet Yellen, there's at least some good odds that the new Fed chairwoman might even reverse course and begin adding even more QE to the mix, which would, naturally, lead to even more speculation in equities, commodities and rare works of art and real estate, sending the global economy further into the debt spiral from which it seems escape is impossible.

After the bell, AT&T modestly beat earnings expectations, and Yahoo beat on the bottom line, showing fourth quarter earnings of 46 cents on expectations of 39 cents. Revenues were in line, though shares of the oldest search portal were seen down more than five percent in after hours trading. Rumors that profit expectations fell short were being discussed as a primary cause for the selloff.

Additionally, the central bank of Turkey was expected to raise interest rates by as much as two to three percent in order to stave off further decline in the value of the Turkish Lira. The midnight meeting was taking place as of this writing though no news reports were available at the time of this posting.

DOW 15,928.56, +90.68 (+0.57%)
NASDAQ 4,097.96, +14.35 (+0.35%)
S&P 1,792.50, +10.94 (+0.61%)
10-Yr Note 99.93, +0.62 (+0.63%) Yield: 2.76%
NASDAQ Volume 1.85 Bil
NYSE Volume 3.35 Bil
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4069-1635
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 68-64
WTI crude oil: 97.41, +1.69
Gold: 1,250.80, -12.60
Silver: 19.50, -0.29
Corn: 432.00, +0.25