Succinct Summations of the Week’s Events 3.16.18 (plus A Wrinkle In Time)

This week's summation has jobless claims down and industrial production up while retails sales slip a bit and the Producer Price Index rises.  For this Sunday's entertainment, Barry Ritholtz posted on his Big Picture blog today a delightful little vignette from the new hit movie "A Wrinkle In Time."  Enjoy, and continue enjoying this (finally!) dry and sunny weather, though it's still winter until the lows are above freezing.  Maybe another week.


Succinct Summations of the Week’s Events 3.16.18

March 16, 2018 4:30pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending March 16th, 2018

Positives:

1. Jobless claims fell by 4k w/o/w, down from 230k to 226k.
2. Home mortgage applications rose a seasonally adjusted 3% w/o/w.
3. Industrial production rose 1.1% in February.
4. The housing market index still shows optimism, coming in at an index score of 70.
5. Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index remains high 56.2, falling by only .6% w/o/w.

Negatives:

1. Retail sales fell 0.1%, missing expectations; Same store sales growth slowed by .9% y/o/y.
2. Producer Price index rose 1% to 2.8% y/o/y
3. Housing starts fell 7% m/o/m, much lower than expected.
4. January Business inventories rose 0.6%. February and March are uncertain due to a decline in sales by 0.2%.
5.  Import prices rose .4% m/o/m. Export prices rose .2% m/o/m.

 Sun 3-18-18 Flower of the Universe - The Big Picture

Flower of the Universe

March 16, 2018 9:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Sade’s ‘Flower Of The Universe’ Is Here, And It Is Stunning. 

Source: NPR

NPR:

Sade is on no one’s timetable — she seems, in fact, to revolve independently of the Earth. It’s been nearly seven years since we heard new music from one of music’s most-prized and most intermittent voices — but all it took, apparently, was a request from director Ava DuVernay. “I never thought she’d say yes, but asked anyway,” DuVernay wrote when announcing the new song, “A goddess.”

The track is classic Sade — a lush, honey sway, a voice like thick, slow-motion silk. “Flower of the Universe” will appear on the stacked soundtrack to DuVernay’s upcoming adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, the 1962 children’s science-fiction novel by Madeleine L’Engle