For the next part of my ‘Potential Market Negative’ series I wanted to take a look at short interest on the NYSE. This summer’s rally has begun squeezing out a good number of shorts from the market, reducing the short interest on the NYSE to around 14bn shares in July from over 16bn shares in […]
Archive:
August 2009
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index improved to 18 in August compared to 17 in July. This is the idnex’s highest reading since June 2008. This index measures builders’ views over the conditions of the housing market; any reading below 50 implies their view is negative. The index remains depressed primarily due to, improving, but […]
I wanted to do a quick series highlighting and quantifying some concerns facing investors over the coming months. For the first part of this series I wanted to highlight monthly equity performance, as tracked by the S&P500 total return index, from 1993 through today. September has the dubious distinction of being known as the worst […]
The Fed just announced that they will extend the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) program to March 2010 from its original expiry date of Dec 2009, and to Jun 2010 for CMBS. The TALF was designed to help stoke the asset backed security market in an attempt to help unlock consumer and small business […]
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey moved back into positive territory for the first time in over a year in August with a reading of +12.08 from -0.55. This is the index’s highest reading since November 2007. New orders rose to +13.43 from +5.89, the prices paid index increased to +13.83 from +10.42m and the The […]
This week will provide us with our first peak into this month’s manufacturing and housing sector data with Monday’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey and NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. They will be followed up later in the week with the Philly Fed manufacturing survey, and both housing starts and existing home sales on the housing […]
Augusts’ preliminary consumer sentiment index unexpectedly fell this morning with a reading of 63.2, compared to a Bloomberg consensus forecast of 68.5 and a July reading of 66.0. It was anticipated that modest improvements to the employment situation and stock market gains would help lift this index, but this clearly was not the case. At […]
July’s Industrial Production Index rose by +0.5%, compared to a Bloomberg consensus of +0.6%. his was the index’s first gain in nine months. Capacity utilization came in slightly higher than expected at 68.5% compared to a consensus forecast of 68.0%. The manufacturing output experienced an increment of +1.0%, mostly attributable to increased automobile production. Excluding […]
July’s CPI and Core CPI rose by +0.0% and +0.1%, respectively. This result was slightly lower than the Bloomberg consensus of +0.1% for the headline number and +0.2% for the core. ON a year over year basis the headline CPI stands at -2.1%, while the core-CPI has gained +1.5% during the same time frame. Lower […]
Initial jobless claims rose to 4K this week to 558K, compared to a previous revised reading of 554K and a Bloomberg consensus forecast of 543K. This number has been trending to lower, which indicates a slowing improvement for the US labor market. But, claims still remains far from healthy levels, and still indicates significant deterioration […]