Week ending March 15: Succinct Summation of Weeks Events
Positives:
1. The Dow notched 10th straight days of gains — first time since 1996.
2. Retail sales crush, 1.1% vs expectations of 0.5% (largest beat since December ’09).
3. VIX falls to it’s lowest level in six years.
4. 16 of the 18 largest fin institutions pass stress tests + capital plans approved by the Fed.
5. Jobless claims fall to 332k, the second lowest weekly reading in the post-recession period.
6. Euro-zone Q4 employment falls to lowest levels since Q1 2006.
7. AAII Bulls rose to 45.4 from 31.1, 6 week high (Bears fell to 32 from 38.5, a 4 week low)
8. DAX index is now within 1.07% away from making an all time high.
9. Australian companies added 71.5k jobs in February, the biggest monthly gain since July 2000.
10. Only 9th time in the history DJIA has closed at an all-time high 8 days in a row.
11. NFIB small business optimism index was 90.8 — up 1.9 points in February.
Negatives:
1. Complacency? VIX falls to it’s lowest level in six years.
2. Hollywood sweetheart Mila Kunis just bought stocks! (when she quits to become a day trader, liquidate everything and go short).
3. Dow up only 2.85% over its 9 day win streak — weakest such streak since 1964
4. JP Morgan and Goldman are forced to resubmit their capital plans.
5. Gas spikes drive CPI higher, accounting for almost ¾ of the 0.7% rise, which was the biggest increase since 6. June 2009. However core CPI which excludes food and energy rose by a mere 0.2%, pretty benign.
7. U.K mfr production declined 3% y/y for January vs -1.5%.
8. U of M Consumer confidence plunges to 71.8 in March — biggest miss on record.
9. Eurozone Ind Prod for Jan down -1.3% Y/Y (Greek ind prod in January fell 4.8% y/y)
10. Empire Manufacturing comes in at 9.24 vs an expected 10
11. U.S. January business inventories rise 1%, sales drop 0.3%
12. PPI rose by 0.7%, mostly due to higher energy prices, which rose 3% in February.
13. The pound is down almost 7% YTD vs Dollar.
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