Over the past week the majority of our core market health indicators fell. Most significantly was our core measure of risk. It bounced back and forth between positive and negative, but managed to eek out a win and stay above zero near the close on Friday. As a result, there are no changes to our…
While the broader market indices sold off on Monday, shares of Boot Barn Holdings (BOOT) bucked that trend by rising a modest 0.33% on relatively light trading. Shares of the California-based retailer closed the trading day at $18, or $0.06 over last Friday’s closing price of $17.94. Interestingly, the stock price moved higher without a corresponding increase…
Average hourly earnings for all employees unexpectedly declined 0.2%, $0.06 per hour in December vs. November. This was the largest month-to-month percentage drop since the data series began in 2006. The following charts will help put wages in perspective, on an annual basis (percent change in wages vs. wages the same month a year ago). Average Wages…
Yesterday’s WSJ article on rising auto loan delinquencies had a familiar ring. It focused on sub-prime borrowers who were missing payments within a few months of the vehicle purchase. Needless to say, that’s exactly the manner in which early signs of the subprime mortgage crisis appeared in late 2006 and early 2007. More than 8.4% of…
Via Goldman Sachs, Elections a potential driver of market volatility Eight EU countries are due to have parliamentary elections in 2015. Several contests have the potential to drive market volatility. As a result of the high economic costs of austerity and economic adjustment, populist parties have gained at the expense of the mainstream political establishment….
I have gone mostly sidelines with the seasonal stock market bounce stuff, but also am not short a single thing. With that disclosed, here is a gappy view of the SPY. Does yesterday’s gap up on some Fed guy’s jawbone seem particularly healthy? One would think that gap has a good chance of filling, just…
The temp staffing index hit an all time high just before Christmas as we expected it would given its strength heading to the holiday hiring season. While that alone would signal increasing gains down the road, what it has done since then bodes well for even more. Here is the chart (click to enlarge): While the consistent upward slope…
This never grows old. The BLS and the MSM are touting the phenomenal job gains over the last two months. They love to shout the figures from their one survey, while ignoring the data from the more comprehensive household survey. So here is what they are screaming from the mountaintops: November New Jobs – 353,000…
Well, it has been an interesting start to a New Year. As I penned yesterday: “Since the end of the Federal Reserve’s latest QE program, market volatility has picked up markedly. Since October, as QE came to its final bond buying conclusion, the drain of liquidity begin to financial market activity. As shown in the chart…
The headlines say wholesale sales declined and inventories grew. This data series is very noisy, and continues on a roller coaster of good and bad data. Because of this noise, the best way to look at this series may be the unadjusted data three month rolling averages which decelerated for the fourth month in a…
