Morning Briefing
September 20, 2021 | ALB, Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell another 1.70% today and it’s now down 3.94% from the September 2 high. As the index dropped last week (again) and over the weekend, lots of Wall Street money managers said Hey, stocks were over-valued and news from Beijing and Washington (and places in between) is negative, but if stocks drop 5% we will be buyers. It looks like might get to test that conviction sooner than anyone expected. Which way will things break on another decline?
September 17, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Without government intervention China Evergrande, one of the country’s biggest property developers, will be forced into a bankruptcy reorganization. The company used promises of above-market returns to raise billions in financing from individual investors through unregulated money management products. Now protesters daily storm the company’s offices as Evergrande falls further and further behind on payments to more than 70,000 investors. Construction of unfinished properties with enough floor space to cover three-fourths of Manhattan has come to a halt and a million homebuyers are stuck having made payments to Evergrande but without homes to show from their cash.The housing ministry told Evergrande’s main banks this week that the developer won’t be able to make interest payments due September 20. Evergrande’s stock is down 90% from the 2020 high.
September 15, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Retail sales rose just 2.5% in August from a year earlier, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported today. The estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for 7% year over year growth. Retail sales grew at an 8.5% pace in July. Industrial production was up 5.3% year over year, down from a 6.4% rate in July. Fixed asset investment grew by 8.9% in the first eight months of the year from the same period in 2020. Economists were looking for 9% growth. Construction investment contracted by 3.2% in t5he first eight months of 2021 from that period in 2020 as the government tightened controls on risky money accounts used to finance property development.
September 14, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.3% in August (on a seasonally adjusted basis.) That comes after a 0.5% increase in July. Year over year the headline CPI rose 5.3% in August. That’s slightly below the 5.4% 12-month increase in July.
September 13, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Most of the major U.S. stock indexes broke a five-day slide today thanks largely to gains in the energy sector as crude prices rallied to a six-week high.
August 31, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
I’m taking some time off starting today. I’ll be back at the keyboard full time on September 13. Except for travel days–like today and tomorrow–I’ll be checking in with posts that are already in the can (like Thursday’s video on why September and October will be worse that the historic usual this year) and whenever something in the markets requires action or comment.
August 30, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, OKTA |
We’ve heard from Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple. The earnings from the BIG GUYS are IN. But this week brings a bushel of earnings reports from the next generation in technology. And on recent performance these stocks have been out gaining most of the big tech stocks. Like what stocks, you ask?
August 27, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell didn’t surprise Wall Street with his speech today at the (virtual) Jackson Hole central bankers conference. Instead he left the Federal Reserve on a path to begin reducing its purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed assets from the current $120 billion a month rate sometime in 2021. Powell said added that at the Fed’s last policy meeting in July, he “was of the view, as were most participants, that if the economy evolved broadly as anticipated, it could be appropriate to start reducing the pace of asset purchases this year.” Powell did not lay out a clear timeline for when the Fed could change its policies, or how the Fed could structure its taper. And most importantly for Wall Street he didn’t push ahead with a schedule for raising the central bank’s benchmark interest rate from the current 0% to 0.25% range.
August 26, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Initial claims for unemployment in regular state programs totaled 353,000 in the week ended August 21, up 4,000 from the prior week, the Labor Department reported today, August 26. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for a very slight increase to 350,000 new claims.
August 25, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
With Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell scheduled to give a talk at the (virtual) Jackson Hole central bankers’ gab fest on Friday morning, Treasury yields moved slightly higher today, August 25. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed 5 basis points to 1.35%. I don’t think I’d read much into this move.
August 24, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Will Rogers said, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” Still it looks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has succeeded in finding a deal with moderate Democrats that will result in passage of President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget plan and the separate bipartisan $550 billion infrastructure bill.
August 23, 2021 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Today Delta Variant optimism ruled. First, investors cheered as the Food & Drug Administration granted full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. That status replaces the “emergency use” authorization and it should, the theory goes, lead to a greater uptake of the vaccine as some individuals who had been hesitant to get the jab get vaccinated and as some companies and institutions that had been reluctant to require workers to get an emergency use vaccine decide that they’ve now got the legal cover for a vaccination mandate. Second, the statistics show that Covid-19 cases are falling in many of the original Delta-variant hot spots in the U.S. The United States is recording more than 1,000 deaths a day, a count that has more than tripled in a month. But in states such as Arkansas and Missouri, where the Delta surge began, the seven-day average of cases is down 12% from the peak, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Florida and Louisiana–states in the second phase of the U.S. Delta wave–are starting to see similar declines. On past history, a earlier surges in cases of infection have peaked after 60 days. In much of the country, the Delta Variant wave turns 60 days old today. So there’s reason for optimism.
