Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 10.12.18 (plus Per Capita U.S. Labor Hours)

Below is the usual weekly summation, the main positive being once again a hope for avoiding a trade war with China, and the big obvious negative being the worst plunge in the stock market since March.  The bonus this Sunday evening is a nice little graphic showing that we Americans are among the hardest working people in the world, or at least put in the most hours.  As the graph shows, per capita annual hours for U.S. workers has risen dramatically since the 1960s while at the same time have fallen dramatically in Europe.  In the U.S. we take such great pride in having the highest productivity in the world but is it possible that, if we recalculate on a per capita basis, we'll find we're not doing as well as we think? 

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 10.12.18

October 12, 2018 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending October 12th, 2018

Positives:

1. Same store sales rose 6.5% w/o/w, up from previous rise of 5.7%;
2. Presidents Trump and Xi plan a get together at the G20 meeting the end of November, hopefully avoiding a US-China trade war;
3.  Consumer sentiment comes in at 99.0 for early October, meeting expectations;
4. PPI-FD rose 0.2% m/o/m, up from previous 0.1% decline;
5.  Wholesale inventories rose 1.0% m/o/m, beating expected 0.8% rise.

Negatives:

1. U.S. stocks fell more than 4% on the week, their worst week since March;
2. Venerable retailer Sears is rumored to be preparing for Bankruptcyfiling;
3. Home mortgage applications fell a seasonally adjusted 1.0% w/o/w, down from previous;
4. Jobless claims rose 7k w/o/w from 207k to 214k;
5. CPI rose 0.1% m/o/m, meeting the low end of expectations.