Succinct Summations of Week’s Events 9.11.15 (& bonus)

It's time for the much vaunted eye-shot summary ending the week's volatile 4-day session but at least this time to the upside with job creation increasing and jobless claims decreasing.  Consumer sentiment fell a bit but is still close to 90% but that hasn't stopped the naysayers who are already ferreting out the negative and predicting a weak Q3.  It seems to me they also did that for Q2 (and Q1) and were ultimately proven wrong on both counts.  This Sunday's bonus is another one-page course on investment basics, but this time a course-in-reverse, a tongue-in-cheek summary of everything you should do if you want to go broke -- and it all fits rather neatly on a 4x6 index card.  Let's see if the news from the Fed next week can also fit on a 4x6 index card.  

Succinct Summations of Week’s Events 9.11.15

by Barry Ritholtz - September 11th, 2015, 4:30pm

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).

The advice to ensure financial ruin? It fits on a 4×6 index card. | The Big Pi

The advice to ensure financial ruin? It fits on a 4×6 index card.

by Barry Ritholtz - September 13th, 2015, 10:00am

My Sunday Washington Post Business Section column is out. This morning, we look at the idea of putting all if the financial advice anyone needs on an 4×6 index card — the twist is to invert it, via some really bad advice.

Both the print and online versions had the Twitter friendly headline How to ruin your financial life, #badadvice. This got lots of pickup when Tweeted, and I was curious how it might play out as a column.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Sometimes people need a bit more to keep them on the path to financial security — the sort of thing that lands like a two-by-four to the head, if only to a) grab their limited attention and b) make them focus on what really matters. That index-card trick certainly inspired people to rethink the virtues of simple, basic financial advice.

This week I am going to shamelessly steal the idea of offering advice so simple it fits on an index card, with my own twist: I will offer you really awful investing advice.”

It turned out to be rather fun — go check the whole thing.

Source:
How to ruin your financial life, #badadvice
Barry Ritholtz
Washington Post, September 13 2015
http://wapo.st/1Nu5OfQ