Succinct Summation for Week’s Events 3.27.15 (+ bonus)

Presenting again the usual week ending eye-shot summary of the events that have shaped the market and economy in the past seven days.  The bonus this Sunday is Barry Ritholtz's Sunday reading list which includes a New York Times article about how to get financial advice on getting financial advice.

Succinct Summation for Week’s Events 3.27.15

by Barry Ritholtz - March 27th, 2015, 4:00pm

Succinct Summations of week ending March 27^th

Positives:

1. Markit’s Eurozone PMI rose to 54.1, the highest levels since May 2011.
2. Consumer prices rose 0.2% in February, in line with expectations.
3. Initial jobless claims fell to 282k, 8k less than expected.
4. New home sales came in at an annualized rate of 539k vs the 464k expected. They grew at 7.8% vs an expected decline of -3.5%, the fastest pace since March 2008
5. US CPI was flat y/o/y vs expectations of a 0.1% drop. Core CPI grew 1.7%, in line with expectations.
6. MBA mortgage application composite rose 9.5%, up from the 3.9% drop in the prior week.

Negatives:

1. Durable goods fell 1.4% m/o/m vs expectations of a 0.2% rise.
2. The Richmond Fed came in at -8 vs 3 expected.
3. Q4 GDP remained at 2.2% vs expectations of 2.4% growth.
4. Japanese manufacturing PMI fell to 50.4 vs expectations of 52.
5. Existing home sales came in at 4.88M annualized vs expectations of 4.9M
6. U.S. stocks fell and are now negative on the year.

10 Sunday Reads

by Barry Ritholtz - March 29th, 2015, 7:00am

• Need Financial Advice? Ask the Future You (NY Times)
• Vanguard snubs outsiders in digital advice: As firms like Schwab and Vanguard build more online portfolios, money managers face an ‘open architecture’ question (Investment News)
• Activist Investor Bill Ackman Sets a $1 Million Debate Bet (Vanity Fair)
• Does bankruptcy trump privacy? (Digitopoly)
• Piketty’s Three Big Mistakes (Bloomberg View)
• The War Over Who Steve Jobs Was (Medium) see also Becoming Steve Jobs biography: ‘Much of it was chutzpah and self delusion’ (The Register)
• How Poor Are the Poor? (NY Times)
• BBC’s Hypocrisy Shifts Into ‘Top Gear’ (Bloomberg View) see also Top Gear Shouldn’t Go on Without Jeremy Clarkson (Wired)
• Finally, we know how many bloggers live in their parents’ basement (WonkBlog)
• Scientists Divided Over Cosmic Event: Did the highly anticipated clash between a black hole and a gas cloud fall flat? (WSJ) see also Black Hole Fails to Destroy Mystery Cosmic Cloud (National Geographic)