Sunday, October 1, 2017

Succinct Summations for Week Ending 9.29.17 (plus political reading preferences)

The usual Sunday night summation for the week is below with the positive being all the indexes again reaching new all-time highs, Q3 GDP rising to 3.1 percent, corporate profits rising to 7.4 percent. The negatives include home sales down a bit and jobless claims up a bit. I always find it very interesting to read about analyses of political preferences and this Sunday's bonus is a terrific graphic illustrating the different reading preferences from right to center to left. The point is that the books that are enjoyed by both the right and the left are few, but these titles are also there. Enjoy, and hope everyone had a great weekend. Warmer temps coming.

Succinct Summations for Week Ending 9.29.17

September 29, 2017 4:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending September 29th, 2017

Positives:

1. S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Russell 2000 all made new all-time highs.
2. Real GDP rose 3.1% in the third quarter, with consumer spending rising 3.3%.
3. Corporate profits rose 7.4% y/o/y.
4. S&P Case-Shiller home price index rose 0.3% m/o/m and 5.8% y/o/y.
5. Consumer confidence remains high, coming in at 119.8, slightly below the 120.2 expected.
6. Headline durable good orders rose 1.7% m/o/m, with the core rising 0.9%.
7. Chicago PMI rose from 58.9 to 65.2, above the 58.5 expected.

Negatives:

1. Pending home sales fell 2.6% m/o/m.
2. Personal income rose 0.2% m/o/m, in line with expectations. The prior month was revised down from 0.4% to 0.3%.
3. Jobless claims rose from 259k to 272, with the 4-week average rising to 277.75k.
4. New home sales fell from a 571k annualized rate to 560k, below the 583k expected.
5. Chicago Fed national activity index fell to -0.31 in August, the weakest reading in a year.
6. MBA mortgage applications fell 0.5% w/o/w, with refinances falling 4%.

Political Leanings of Readers - The Big Picture