Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 4.21.17 (plus best books on investing)

Below lies the traditional succinct weekly summation though this was really an uneventful week compared to what's coming up next week what with the infamous "100 Days" landmark combined with the notorious threat of another government shutdown as the scenario next Friday of the Congress failing to pass a federal budget looms as a distinct possibility.  So this coming week will be fascinating.  Beyond that, you may consider tonight's blog to be another fortunate circumstance worthy of a bookmark since in the last few days I stumbled onto Barry Ritholtz's list from 2016 of what he considers to be the 12 best books ever written about investing.  The link to the article is directly below the summary.  Enjoy, and hope everyone had a great weekend.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 4.21.17

April 21, 2017 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending April 21st, 2017.

Positives:

1. Existing home sales rose 4.4% m/o/m and 5.9% y/o/y to an annualized rate of 5.710 million.
2. Industrial production rose 0.5% m/o/m.
3. Initial jobless claims came in at 244k, the 4-week average is lower for the 3rd straight week.
4. The philly fed business outlook survey remains strong, coming in at 22.

Negatives:

1. PMI composite flash fell from 53.2 to 52.7, both manufacturing and services fell.
2. Housing starts fell 6.8% to a 1.215 million annualized rate.
3. Manufacturing component of industrial production fell 0.4% m/o/m.
4. The housing market index fell from 71 to 68 (still a strong reading).
5. Empire State Manufacturing cooled off from its unsustainably high reading, falling from 16.4 to 5.2.
6. MBA mortgage application index fell 1.8% w/o/w.

 A reading list that yields a solid return on investment - The Washington Post

1.  "Market Wizards,"  Jack D. Schwager
2.  "Bull!  A History of the Boom 1982-1999" by Maggie Mahar
3.  "Black Monday"  Tim Metz
4.  "A Random Walk Down Wall Street,"  Burton Malkiel
5.  "Thinking, Fast and Slow," Daniel Kahneman
6.  "Extraordinary Popular Delusions" Charles Mackay
7.  "The Myth of the Rational Market"  Justin Fox
8.  "The Quants" Scott Patterson
9.  "The Big Short"  Michael Lewis
10.  "Winning the Loser's Game" Charles D. Ellis
11.  "When Genius Failed"  Roger Lowenstein
12.  "Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk" Peter L. Bernstein