As I mentioned was a likely scenario in my US Economic Week Ahead, jobless claims fell 47K to 522K. As with last week, early auto company layoffs have likely distorted the index due to misaligned seasonal adjustments. I do believe we should continue to see an improvement in jobless claims, but the levels seen over […]
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Data Release
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey’s General Business Conditions Index moved up to -0.6 from -9.4 in June. Both the new orders and shipment indices came in above 0 this month, indicating growth, at 5.9 and 11.0, respectively. But, the employment index remained depressed with a reading of -20.8, almost unchanged from the prior month. It […]
Retail sales jumped 0.9% last month on the back of higher gasoline prices and increased automobile purchases. Automobile sales were mostly catalyzed by bigger incentives to clear inventories. But, factoring out these components retail sales would have actually declined for the 4th consecutive month. Therefore, despite what appears to be a significant increment on the […]
Initial Claims finished came in this morning at 565K versus the previous week’s reading of 614K and a consensus forecast of 610K. I believe the improvement may have been exaggerated by inaccurate seasonal adjustment factors stemming from the timing of automotive and other manufacturing lay-offs, which could be repeated next week. Although, I do believe […]
Kicking of the 2Q09 earnings season Alcoa (AA) reported a loss yesterday of US$0.26/share compared to analysts’ average estimate of US$0.38/share. The company accredited the better than expected result to workforce reductions and production cuts. CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said in a statement, “Alcoa has the staying power and reduced cost base to withstand the most […]
The MBA The Market Composite Index rose 10.9% the week ending July 3rd 2009. The purchase index rose 6.7%, while the refinancing component climbed 15.2%, on the back of relatively favorable interest rates. Remember this index could be skewed by lenders filling out multiple applications, and I would like to see a continued trend in […]
ICSC-Goldman Store Sales demonstrated a week over week increase of 0.1% and a year over year increase of 0.5% during the holiday week. This likely won’t have much effect on today’s trading. But, the Redbook, which was released at 8:55AM showed a 4.2% y/y decline in same store sales, which continues to indicate the retail […]
The Non-Manufacturing ISM came in at 47 compared to the consensus forecast of 46.7. This signifies the sector is still contracting, but at a slower pace than in May, which had a reading of 44.0. This was the index’s best showing in 9 months. The new orders index, which tends to be forward looking rose […]
June’s ADP release came in at -473,000, implying there could be some downward pressure placed on forecasts for tomorrow’s payroll data. Currently, the market is forecasting a -350,000 change in payrolls; I believe we could see this number actually come in around -440,000, which is still much better than the six month average, but below […]
As I highlighted in my column on TheStreet.com on Monday shipping stocks will be highly susceptible to any major economic news impacting market’s views on the long-term outlook. This mornings consumer confidence number was proof of that, tumbling to 49.3 compared to 54.8 last month. Both the present situation index and the future situation index […]