Succinct Summations of Week’s Events 3.15.19 (plus Flawed Retirement)

It's that time of the week again for the summation, this time on the positive side job openings up 1.4 percent and business inventories, new home sales, and the Consumer Price Index all meeting expectations.  On the negative side the increase in e-commerce sales toppled about 1/3 and durable goods orders about 2/3 while jobless claims rose about 2 percent.  The bonus this Sunday is a feature from Consuelo Mack's "WealthTrack" series on PBS that should be near and dear to all of our hearts -- avoiding the pitfalls of the retirement crisis - or - how to have a better retirement.  Hope everyone had a great weekend and a great St. Patrick's Day.

Succinct Summations of Week’s Events 3.15.19

March 15, 2019 5:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending March 15th, 2019

Positives:

1. Same store sales rose 4.4% w/o/w, greater than previous 4.2% increase; Retail sales rose 0.2% m/o/m above the expected 0.1% increase.
2.Business inventories rose 0.6% m/o/m, meeting expectations.
3. Job openings rose 1.4% in January from 7.479M to 7.581M
4. New home sales came in at 607k for January, meeting expectations.
5. Construction spending rose 1.3%, above the expected 0.3% increase.
6. Import and export prices both rose 0.6% m/o/m, beating expected 0.2% rise.
7. CPI rose 0.2% m/o/m, meeting expectations.

Negatives:

1. E-commerce retail sales rose 2.0% q/o/q, decelerating from previous 3.1% rise.
2. Durable goods orders rose 0.4% m/o/m, decelerating from previous 1.3% increase.
3. Jobless claims rose 6k w/o/w form 223k to 229k.
4. Industrial production rose 0.1% m/o/m, missing the expected 0.4% increase.
5. Empire state mfg survey came in at 3.7, well below the expected 10.
6. PPI-FD rose 0.2% m/o/m, missing the expected 0.1% increase.  

3-7-19 FLAWED RETIREMENT - A message from Consuelo - March 7, 2019

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March 7, 2019 Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber, How real is the retirement crisis?  This headline might give you a pretty good indication: “40% of older workers and their spouses will experience downward mobility in retirement.” That’s 8.5 million middle-class workers and their spouses who are near retirement will fall into poverty or near poverty in their old age! Those findings come from this week’s webcast guest.  She is economist and retirement expert Teresa Ghilarducci, Director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School, where she leads itsRetirement Equity Lab which researches the causes and consequences of the retirement crisis.  Professor Ghilarducci has also come up with some workable solutions to the crisis.  She has written extensively on the issue, including several books.  The most recent isRescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee Retirement Security for All Americans, which she co-authored with Tony James, the Executive Vice-Chairman of Blackstone.  You can see my recent interview with Tony James onwealthtrack.com and hear this week’s Ghilarducci podcast as well. Rethinking the retirement system and how individuals should approach their own retirement plans is our theme this week on both our website and our broadcast. With public television in the middle of its spring fund raising drive we are revisiting a recent interview with retirement expert Jamie Hopkins who says no matter what our age we need to rethink the whole retirement process because saving for it is vastly different from spending in it. Hopkins is the Co-Director of the Center for Retirement Income at the American College of Financial Services, which is the nation’s largest non-profit educational institution for financial advisors. He is one of the creators of a relatively new certification for financial planners called the “Retirement Income Certified Professional” or RICP, a program designed to educate financial planners on retirement income planning.  He is also the author of a new book, Rewirement: Rewiring the Way You Think About Retirement.  In this week’s interview, Hopkins explains why we need to rethink everything we assume we know about retirement. As always, if you miss the show on Public Television, you can watch it on our website.  You’ll also find an EXTRAweb exclusive interview with Hopkins there as well as this week’s podcast with economist and pension expert Teresa Ghilarducci. Thank you for spending your precious time with us. Have a great weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and a productive one! Best regards, Consuelo