Remember the August payroll report, which came in much weaker than the consensus was expecting? After six consecutive months of 200k-plus (April in fact was 300k-plus) jobs, August produced a mere 142k. Across the board, economists quickly brushed it off … Continued
As discussed last week that non-commercial futures traders might just once again be ahead of the curve in anticipating market reaction to Thursday’s ECB decision, they indeed were. By Tuesday (last week), they had raised net shorts in euro futures … Continued
The revised 2Q14 GDP numbers last week have rekindled hopes of a corporate capital spending revival in the U.S. It was the second estimate (preliminary), so there is one more revision to go. Nevertheless, several inputs related to corporate spending … Continued
NYSE Composite short interest in the middle of August was essentially unchanged month-over-month at 14.8bn, while the Nasdaq Composite saw a 2.4-percent decrease at 8.6bn. The adjacent chart and the one below show how short interest has been building up … Continued
The Congressional Budget Office yesterday put out some interesting forecasts for the current fiscal year. Corporate tax revenues will come in at $315bn, versus prior forecast of $351bn, it said, and that U.S. real GDP growth will be 1.5 percent, … Continued
The piece yesterday on U.S. housing was based on June’s numbers. New-home sales data came out yesterday, and it was anything but encouraging. Year-over-year, sales (seasonally adjusted annual rate) rose 12.2 percent but fell 2.4 percent month-over-month. The latter helps … Continued
There was a lot of excitement last week when housing starts/building permits data were released for July. Starts surged 15.7 percent month-over-month and 21.7 percent year-over-year to 1.1mn units (seasonally adjusted annual rate). Multi-family (five units or more) easily outran … Continued
A month ago, we pointed out a divergence between 10- and two-year Treasury yield spread, which peaked as 2013 was unwinding, and financial stocks, which had ceased to track the spread and were rallying. Going back nearly 18 years, the … Continued
Two members of the Monetary Policy Committee, the Bank of England’s interest rate-setting committee, voted to raise interest rates by 25 basis points in August, the minutes released yesterday showed. Market participants were taken by surprise. They have been conditioned … Continued
At hedgopia, we try to be as objective as possible. Currently, this blogger is bearish insofar as U.S. equities and economy are concerned. Nevertheless, as someone famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What would you do, … Continued