Greetings, The United States: Economists continue to forecast higher inflation next year, with the core PCE index climbing above the 2% level. Morgan Stanley expects inflation increases to be driven by services that exclude housing and medical care. Equity Markets: The retail sentiment on equities has soured. Institutional investors have been moving …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 15th, 2018
Greetings, The United States: Evidence for a broad-based increase in US wage growth remains elusive for now. Here is the Atlanta Fed’s GDP tracker for full-time employees. Nevertheless, economists remain convinced that it’s only a matter of time. Margan Stanley points out that with no slack left in the labor markets, hourly earnings …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 14th, 2018
Greetings, The United States: Most economists expect the next recession to hit in 2020 or 2021, making the current expansion the longest on record. Here is an example of such a forecast, showing job losses in 2021. Equity Markets: This chart shows the S&P 500 earnings-per-share growth rate. Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin enters …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 10th, 2018
Greetings, The United States: Despite higher interest rates, mortgage applications for house purchase remain at multi-year highs for this time of the year. Equity Markets: The market’s response to companies beating earnings forecasts has been lackluster. Cryptocurrency: This chart shows the year-to-date relative performance of some major cryptocurrencies. Ripple (blue) is …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 9th, 2018
Greetings, The United States: Given a possible slowdown globally, is the Fed becoming too confident (possibly even complacent) about the US economy? Fed officials mention the word “global” far less frequently now. The frequency of the words “concerns” and “uncertainty” hit the lowest level since 2007. Equity Markets: Investors have been rolling …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 8th, 2018
Greetings, The United States: More Americans expect to see increases in their local housing prices than at any time since 2005. Equity Markets: Retail investors further soured on stocks last month – a bullish sign. Commodities: Increases in global corn production will be driven almost entirely by rising crop yields. Credit: …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 7th, 2018
Greetings, The United States: With more household members employed and working longer hours, the overall household paycheck growth remains above 4% per year. Equity Markets: Here are some updates on the current earnings season. • Earnings surprises: Commodities: The rise in lumber prices has been impressive. Here is a 30-year chart. Credit: Corporate debt …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 3rd, 2018
Greetings, The United States: Here is an updated “recession dashboard” from Credit Suisse. Equity Markets: April saw meaningful inflows into US large-cap funds. Commodities: Electric car production will significantly boost demand for copper, nickel, lithium, and cobalt. Credit: Leveraged loan balances are approaching that of high-yield bonds. The last time …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 2nd, 2018
Greetings, The United States: Will the new tax law curtail foreign investment by raising taxes on foreign-owned US companies? (BEAT = base erosion and anti-abuse tax.) Equity Markets: The correlation between bond yields and stocks has broken down. This is a problem for many portfolios that hold both asset classes. Commodities: As …
The Daily Shot Brief – May 1st, 2018
Greetings, The United States: US manufacturing orders have been showing weak capital investment growth. However, companies are reporting higher CapEx in the first quarter. Part of the reason for the disconnect is that the latest CapEx increases have been dominated by tech firms investing in items such as data centers, servers, communication lines/equipment, …
