Weekly Initial Jobless Claims fell to 300K which is the lowest level in 360 weeks (May 2007). The four-week moving average is very close to making a new 7-year low as well. Import prices rose by 0.6% month-over-month in March while export prices rose a strong 0.8%.
Read MoreMany market commentators have recently been claiming that stock valuations are ”fair” or ”average” and are basing these statements primarily on forward P/E ratios derived from market cap weighted indices like the S&P 500. At least two problems with this methodology come to mind.
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One of the most interesting annual activities we undertake is a top down examination of Chinese corporate balance sheets. Why is it interesting? Because every year we are surprised by their almost systematic deterioration, and 2013 was no exception.
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As the the technical divergences continue to pile up according to our work, one of the stats we’ve been keeping an eye on is how far the average stock is from its one year high.
Read MoreRefi loans are accounting for about half of all mortgage applications which is the lowest amount since July 2009. On the surface this seems like a positive trend back to pre-2008 levels. However, the ABSOLUTE level of mortgage apps is currently only about half of what it was pre-2008.
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The dramatic decline in copper prices that took place at the beginning of March has taken a breather over the last two weeks as the metal has retraced about 37% of the decline that began on March 6th.
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It seems clear that Japan is signaling its intention to stand pat with monetary policy, content to watch how the second quarter plays out. This introduces a risk (or opportunity) that the Yen may regress from the weakening experienced over the last year.
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The JOLTS report came out today and shows that there are more job openings now than at anytime since January 2008. This is slightly higher than what the consensus was predicting. The total number of people who quit their job ticked up slightly in February but the quit rate remained the same.
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Several prominent commentators have noted the tendency of this market to immediately bounce back from minor losses to achieve new cycle highs in short order. Some have termed this the ”buy the dip” mentality among investors.
Read MoreBeginning the year, there had only been five 1% down days over the previous six months. With Friday’s decline, the total has edged up to nine 1% down days over the previous six months.
Read MoreOnce again, the expectations component of a survey– in this case, the Sentix Economic Index– have deviated from the story that the headline or current situation numbers would relay.
Read MoreOne of the common arguments for the continuation of this bull market is that investors have record amounts of excess cash sitting on the sidelines just waiting to be invested.
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We’ve noted recently here and here the declining number of stocks making new cycle highs even though major indices around the world continue to make cyclical highs. So far we’ve just shown the chart of the percent of stocks making new highs on individual days and noted that it keeps contracting.
Read MoreLast week we noted here a recent clustering of negative outside reversal days for the S&P500 (days in which both the intraday high is higher than the previous day’s intraday high and the close is lower than the previous day’s intraday low) and explored what that has historically meant for stocks going forward.
Read MoreThe headline nonfarm payroll number for March came in slightly below consensus at 192K (consensus was looking for 206K). Perhaps more importantly, however, the prior two months were both revised higher by a total of 37K jobs.
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