Succinct Summations for the week ending September 11th
Positives:
1. U.S. job openings increased by 430k to 5.8 million, above the 5.3 million expected.
2. Weekly jobless claims came in at 275k, below the previous reading of 281k.
3.Fed’s Labor Market Conditions Index of 19 monthly indicators rose 2.1 pts in August, the best monthly gain since January
4. Strength of US Dollar has increased our purchasing power as August import prices fell 1.8% m/o/m and 11.4% y/o/y.
5. NIB small business optimism index came in at 95.9, up from 95.4 previously.
6. German exports rose 2.4%, higher than the 1% expected increase.
Negatives:
1. Consumer sentiment came in at 85.7, below expectations and less than the previous reading of 91.9
2. PPI came in flat, down from the 0.2% previous rise.
3. Refinance applications fell 10% w/o/w.
4. Wholesale inventories fell 0.1% vs an expected rise of 0.3%.
5. wholesale inventories fell by .1% m/o/m after sharp gains in the 3 prior months. The estimate was for up .3%. Sales fell by .3% while the I/S ratio held at 1.30, matching the highest since May ’09. (This is a negative for Q3 GDP).
Two negative indicators:
Fred’s “LEI, Change from one year ago, percent” has dipped to -.71, lowest reading since Mar 2009 when we were climbing out and about the same as late 2007 when things began breaking down.
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USSLIND
ECRI’s WLI, growth has ticked down to -2.0
https://www.businesscycle.com/ecri-reports-indexes/all-indexes