Morning Briefing
The credit cycle sure looks like it’s headed off a cliff in U.S., China
With U.S. stock markets closed today for Presidents' Day, credit market news has an opening to move higher on the Investor Worry Bandstand. (The kids give it an 65, as they used to say on American Bandstand. But I think its moving up fast. The American Bandstand...
Positive report today on consumer sentiment negates negative report yesterday on retail sales
Wall Street spent yesterday denying that retail sales could be as weak as indicated by the newest report from the Commerce Department. Today Wall Street is celebrating  the vindication of its cynicism on yesterday retail report in the preliminary University of...
Markets talk themselves out of belief in brutal retail numbers
Overall retail sales fell 1.2% in December from November, according to the Commerce Department. That's the worst drop in nine years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected a 0.1% gain in retail sales. Out of the gate stocks fell today on the news with the...
Core CPI inflation up 2.2% year over year
For January, headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation was unchanged, thanks to falling oil prices-the energy component of the index was down 3.1% for the month. The Core CPI, which excludes more volatile food and energy prices and is closer to the PCE inflation...
Joint Congressional committee reaches deal to keep government open; market climbs on assumption that President will sign
Congressional negotiators have reached a deal that would avoid another partial government shutdown when temporary funding runs out on Friday. Getting this through both houses of Congress seems likely. President Donald Trump has said he isn't happy with the deal but a...
China’s stock markets re-open to dose of negative news
Welcome back! The Shanghai and other Chinese stock markets re-opened today after the Spring Festival/Lunar New Year holiday. And investors and traders were greeted with a dose of bad news. First, according to the official China Daily, China's economic growth rate will...
Earnings season draws to a close–with another (slight) warning
As of this morning, more than 75% of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index have reported fourth quarter earnings. As per usual, the bulk of companies have beaten Wall Street earnings estimates. (This is just a game that Wall Street and CEOs play.)...
S&P 500: Testing, testing at 2742
So far this is a normal pause. Stocks frequently pause, pull back, move up again, pull back again when they confront a major resistance level. So it's not surprising that the Standard & Poor's 500 took a breather today after the index closed at 2731 yesterday...
Still no sign of end to supply imbalance in oil
The oil markets keep waiting and waiting and waiting for oil inventories to show that the OPEC + Russia production cuts have balanced oil supply and demand. And they'll have to wait at least another week according to figures on U.S. oil inventories from the U.S....
Another indicator says U.S. economy is slowing
The U.S. service sector--which accounts for about 90% of U.S. economic activity--slowed in January, according to the Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index. The non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers Survey showed the index slipping to 56.7 in...
One consequence of the change in Fed policy likely to be a weaker dollar
A number of Wall Street and big international banks are forecasting a drop in the dollar as a result of the Fed's decision to back off on raising interest rates in 2019. Morgan Stanley, for example, says that the dollar has peaked and has forecast the yen climbing to...Jim’s Stock Alerts
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