U.S. retail sales rose in October for a third month. The value of overall retail purchases increased 1.7% last month, the most in seven months, the Commerce Department said today, November 16. Excluding gas and motor vehicles, sales gained 1.4% in October. The figures aren’t adjusted for inflation. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1.4% advance in overall retail sales.
With stocks trading at record highs, I’d argue that nothing is as important as what “news” is priced in–or not. If stocks have priced in all the likely good news, then there’s much less to drive prices higher–and much more expansive possibilities for drops on disappointments. If there’s likely good news that’s not yet priced in, then stocks have potential fuel to move high. And, on the other hand, if bad news is priced in and fails to materialize, then, hey, we’re going higher from here. And if bad news isn’t priced in, then current record prices aren’t sustainable.
China’s factory-gate prices, the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Producer Price Index, grew at the fastest pace in 26 years in October. Factory inflation climbed 13.5% year over year, the National Bureau of Statistics reported Wednesday.(Economimsts had projected a 12.3% year over year increase.) Raw material costs continued to soar, with signs that producers are passing on higher costs to consumers. China’s consumer inflation rose by 1.5% in October, the fastest pace since September 20202.
The dominoes keep tumbling and I think we’re now set up for one of those extremely volatile market melt ups through early January. Why do I believe that? And what’s a melt up look like? Glad you asked.
I’m starting up my videos on JubakAM.com again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My sixty-fourth YouTube video “It’s a market melt up! went up today.
As we contemplate the extraordinarily strong earnings from Wall Street’s big banks last week, it’s important to remember that Wall Street isn’t Main Street.
You can see yesterday’s stock rally and its continuation today as a return of the Goldilocks market. Yesterday, for example, inflation, if you look just at core inflation–that is without food and energy prices–looked strong enough to make the Federal Reserve very cautious about removing monetary stimulus from the economy, but core inflation wasn’t so strong that it sent up warning flares. And today, the drop in initial claims for unemployment to 293,000 (for the week ended October 9) for a new Pandemic low argues that the economy continues to improve but that the economy in general and the job market in particular are neither too hot nor too cold In other words a Goldilocks scenario.
In the last few days both Goldman Sachs and the International Monetary Fund have cut their forecasts for global economic growth. The predictions don’t call for a big slowdown in growth but the trend is definitely downward.
Why the lack of a reaction to the disappointing September jobs report that fell into territory that had been billed as a market moving event? Because Wall Street didn’t believe the headline jobs numbers. And with good reason.
Profit warnings for the third quarter, which ends on September 30 for most companies, have started to worry Wall Street. So far most of the revisions have come from materials producers such as PP Industries (PPG) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW). PP Industries, for example, lowered its sales number for the quarter by $250 million. That’s a decent-sized hit on Wall Street’s projected $4.3 billion in sales. Sherwin-Williams said that limited availability of raw materials is hampering its ability to meet demand. Quarterly sales could fall by a low single digit percentage year over year. But there are signs of a more extensive problem.
I expect that the the financial markets will remember this week that the Federal Reserve will actually say something after its meeting on Wednesday, September 22. Even if the Fed doesn’t change policy at all, the central bank will deliver a new set of economic projections with views on inflation and GDP growth that could add volatility to an already nervous markThe CME Fed Watch Tool, which looks at prices in the Fed Funds Futures market to calculate market expectations for an interest rate move by the Federal Reserve, says there’s a 0% chance of a change in interest rates at Wednesday’s meeting. The odds for a Fed interest rate increase go up to only 1.8% at the November 3 meeting according to the CME Fed Watch. And are only 1.7% for the December 15 meeting. In other words the market is utterly convinced that the Fed will do nothing.
An interesting–and I think important–post by Ethan Wolff-Mann on Yahoo Finance yesterday. According to Data from Vanda Research, individual investors haven’t been buying the September dip.
