Over the past few months, we have witnessed a decided deterioration in consumer spending. For instance, first-quarter sales from many large retailers showed little to no growth. Economic data like Q1 GDP and the recent retail sales report further confirm that personal consumption is slowing. Last Friday, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey followed […]
Bad market breadth seems to be a hallmark of the rally off of the 2022 lows. Simply, very few stocks are leading markets higher, while many stocks languish. Consider that the equal-weighted S&P 500 index (RSP) is up 3.70% since the start of the year. Over the same period, the market-weighted S&P 500 (SPY) is […]
The Fed got good news yesterday, with the headline CPI coming in at 0% for the month. More importantly, core CPI rose by +.16% versus expectations of +.30%. That brings the year-over-year core CPI rate to 3.4%, a tenth below expectations. Excluding shelter costs, accounting for 40% of CPI, core CPI, also called “super core,” […]
The Fed often stresses that it prefers core inflation measures, which exclude food and energy prices. They do this for a few reasons. First, food and energy tend to be more volatile than most other goods. Accordingly, they can distort the broader price trends. Second, food and energy prices are affected by many variables, many […]
Degen traders, short for degenerates, are taking storm of the markets. The Wall Street Journal recently published Meet The Degen Traders Fueling The Latest Meme-Stock Mania. The article introduces its readers to a new type of investor creating incredible volatility in a handful of stocks and cryptocurrencies. Per the article: “Degens are gamblers, not traders […]
The BLS jobs report showed the economy added 272k jobs, well above expectations of 175k, and the 152k jobs reported by ADP. Also pointing to a strong labor market, average hourly earnings were 0.1% above expectations at +0.4%. While the jobs data seems strong, there is a lot of other data within the report, leading […]
Yes, you read that right: Texas will host a stock exchange. BlackRock and Citadel are lead investors in a new national stock exchange that plans on calling Texas its headquarters. The Texas Stock Exchange will file for registration with the SEC later this year and hopes to be operational in 2026. The exchange will be […]
Here we go again. At the peak of the mortgage bubble, leading to the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), lenders were offering zero down mortgages. As you may remember, that ended poorly. Accordingly, we presumed that the mistake would not be repeated. We are proven wrong. Per CNN, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) is offering mortgage borrowers […]
Crude oil prices have fallen by 10% over the last five days and nearly 20% since early April. As we will share, a few factors are negatively impacting the price of crude oil. First, OPEC surprised the markets this past weekend. They agreed to extend most of its production cuts to next year but are […]