Succinct Summations of Week’s Events 5.15.15 (plus new reading list)

It's that time of the week and the snapshot all of you wait for to sum up the week's events.  An interesting reading list today too, with several articles discussing various investment topics, including the age-old subject of how to get young adults interested in finance, and maybe even some words of wisdom as to why that might just be our fault.  Being a film producer, I was particularly interested in the item at the bottom of the list about Oskar Schindler of "Schindler's List."  This story sounds like it might have the makings of another terrific movie.

Succinct Summations of Week’s Events 5.15.15

by Barry Ritholtz - May 15th, 2015, 4:00pm

Succinct Summations week ending May 15th

Positives:

1. The S&P 500 hit a new all-time high.
2. EU GDP rose 1% y/o/y.
3. NFIB small business optimism index rose to 96.9
4. Initial jobless claims came in at 264k, the 4-week moving average is the lowest it has been since April 2000.
5. Empire state manufacturing survey came in at 3.09, below expectations but up from the -1.09 prior.

Negatives:

1. U.S Industrial Production fell 0.3% m/o/m vs expectations of no change.
2. U.S Consumer Confidence fell to 88.6, below the expectations of 95.9
3. U.S. Retail sales ex-auto and gas rose 0.2% m/o/m, below the 0.6% expected rise.
4. MBA purchase applications fell 0.2% w/o/w, the refinance index fell 6%.
5. Inventories grew 0.1% m/o/m vs expectations for a 0.2% increase.

10 Sunday Reads

by Barry Ritholtz - May 17th, 2015, 7:00am

Round out your weekend with our Sunday morning reads:

• Financial Advisers Don’t Care About Millennials, and the Feeling Is Mutual (Bloomberg)
• You wanna be right? Or make money? (Adam Grimes) see also Finding the Limitations in Your Investment Process (WOCS)
• Why Stocks Belong in a Retirement Portfolio (NYT)
• The View from the Front Seat of the Google Self-Driving Car (Medium)
• “Vanity capital” is the new metric for narcissism, and its value is greater than Germany’s GDP (Quartz)
• The Verbally Challenged John Taylor Strikes Again (Uneasy Money) see also John Taylor Misunderstands Hayek (Uneasy Money)
• Is David Gurle’s Symphony a Big Threat to Bloomberg? (Institutional Investor)
• Feds Tell Insurers To Pay For Anesthesia During Screening Colonoscopies (NPR) but see also Obamacare making insurers more responsive, efficient (MarketWatch)
• Göring’s brother was another Schindler: A German book reveals how Albert Göring saved the lives of dozens of Jews (The Independent)
• The Magic of Moss and What It Teaches Us About the Art of Attentiveness to Life at All Scales (Brain Pickings)