This week the Markit Manufacturing PMI came in at 50.9, the official ISM manufacturing index came in 54.2% and the Factory orders reports came in rising 6.2%. The first two reports were for July and the last for June. All were strong numbers. In the ISM any number above 50 means expansion and below contraction. […]
Steve Mnuchin the Treasury Secretary said he is supportive of a strong dollar as it is the reserve currency of the world. It is the goal of the Trump administration to keep it that way. Of course, they would say that but at the same time, the actions of the government and the Federal Reserve […]
As we watch the damage to our economy from the pandemic and the riots seen every night in major cities, there has to be a crisis brewing in urban housing. With social distancing efforts and the ease of spread in cities like New York, where density is an issue, those wanting for a safer life […]
Weekly jobless claims in the most recent week came in at 1.31 million, which is a four-month low but still a very high number. Those people still collecting unemployment benefits remains elevated at 32.9 million. At the same time, the monthly unemployment numbers in May and June show an increase of 7.5 million jobs. There […]
Pending home sales in May surged. These are contracts signed, but not yet closed, to buy an existing home. The rise was 44.3%, the highest level ever recorded since the National Association of Realtors has been tracking these statistics. However, before we get too excited contract signings were down 5.1% from a year ago. Still, […]
The week was full of economic numbers released for May and it was a mixed bag with surprises both negative and positive. Unemployment claims remain stubbornly high at 1.48 million when it was expected to drop 1.38 million from 1.51 million the week before. All these numbers are extremely high so keep it in perspective. […]
Housing starts for May were up 4.3% as the economy started to reopen and mortgage rates fell to historic lows. This was a pleasant surprise but the truly remarkable number was the surge in building permits for new construction. The month over month increase was 14.4% to 1.22 million annualized units. Also, builders saw a […]
The market this morning is mixed with the DOW and S&P 500 lower but the NASDAQ higher. A mixed market is not unusual, but the internals showed there were 4.7 declining stocks to every 1 stock that was advancing, and declining volume was 91.4% of the total volume of trades on the NYSE. That is […]
The pending homes sales reported this week for April fell by the largest amount ever recorded, 21.8% from March and down 33.8% year over year. While that is very bad news and could be an indication of falling prices in the months ahead all is not dire. Reported earlier ‘new’ home sales rose month over […]
This morning the Retail Sales report for April was released and it was much worse than expected. Sales fell by 16.4% from falling 8.3% the month before. That was 4% worse than expected. If you remove expensive autos, sales fell 17.2%. Industrial production fell 11.2% and capacity utilization shrank to 64.9%. A bit of good […]