Next week’s economic calendar is housing-heavy. Monday brings the NAHB/Wells Fargo housing market index for July, Tuesday housing starts for June, and Thursday existing home sales for June. Builder sentiment remained stuck at 58 for four months through May, before … Continued
As soon as the June payroll report hit the tape pre-open last Friday, markets heaved a big sigh of relief. Reversing the downwardly revised 11,000 non-farm jobs in May, 287,000 jobs were created in June. The S&P 500 large cap … Continued
Much ado about nothing! Really. A lot happened in the second half of June. The 1.3-percent rally in the S&P 500 large cap index between June 15th and 30th belies the crazy roller-coaster ride those two weeks went through. First, … Continued
The pace of U.S. corporate bond issuance slowed in June. Corporations issued $110.8 billion in non-convertible debt and $3 billion in convertible debt last month. Of non-convertible debt, which is what Chart 1 portrays, investment-grade (IG) was $86.8 billion and … Continued
Table 1 was posted in last Tuesday’s blog. It is apropos to be discussing it again. The table tallies instances of rallies of five percent or above on the S&P 500 over four sessions. Going back six years, there have … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of July 5, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: One can make a cogent argument that U.S. sovereign bonds are in a blow-off phase. Since late May through the Friday high, TLT, … Continued
Are U.S. sovereign bonds in a blow-off phase? Tough to say, but they have had quite a rally. Yields on both 30-year bonds and 10-year notes this week made new all-time lows. Post-Brexit, demand for long bonds from major countries, … Continued
U.S. capex continues to let down. May’s revised figures for new orders for non-defense capital goods ex-aircraft – proxy for business capital expenditures – were published on Tuesday, and there was not much change in the trend. Orders fell 0.5 … Continued
Post-Brexit two-session sell-off in stocks was a clear risk-off. The S&P 500 large cap index dropped 5.3 percent in those two sessions. The subsequent four-session, 5.1-percent surge through last Friday was risk-on. Risk-off quickly followed by risk-on! The average investor … Continued
As far as U.S. stocks were concerned, Brexit was just a bad dream. A footnote, so to speak. On the S&P 500 large cap index, the intra-day high of 2113.32 in the session before Brexit hit stands, but last Friday’s … Continued