Daily Chartbook #108

Welcome back to Daily Chartbook: macro market charts, data, and insights pulled from various sources around the Internet by a solo retail investor.

1. Gas prices. "Gas prices, now at $3.12/gallon nationally according to AAA, have fallen every day since 11/9 and are now down 16 cents since the start of the year ($3.28)".

2. Oil positioning (I). "Investors sold petroleum for a fifth consecutive week but the pace of selling slowed as the balance of risks began to shift to the upside".

3. Oil positioning (II). "From a positioning perspective, however, the balance of risks has clearly tilted towards the upside, especially in crude oil".

4. Oil positioning (III). "... and bullish long positions outnumber bearish shorts by a ratio of just 1.95:1 (6th percentile)".

5. Housing starts & building permits (I). "While Housing Starts fell 0.5% MoM (better than the 1.8% drop expected)...forward-looking building permits collapsed 11.2% MoM (vs -2.1% exp). That is the biggest MoM drop since the peak of the COVID lockdowns".

6. Housing starts & building permits (II). "Housing Permits are down over 22% YoY - the biggest drop since 2009 (with single-family permits -29.7% YoY and multi-family down 10.7%)".

7. Record under construction. "Combined, there are 1.709 million units under construction. This ties last month as the all-time record number of units under construction".

8. Rent price growth. "Nationwide, rent prices were up by 8.8% year over year in October, the lowest rate of growth recorded since June 2021".

9. Bottlenecks improving. "Goldman's average bottleneck score at the start of December is 3.0 - down significantly from the Dec/Jan peak and continuing the trend of improved supply chains on a y/y basis".

10. Q4 GDP. "The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast for Q4 2022 was revised to 2.7%, down marginally from the prior forecast of 2.8%".

11. Recession odds. "The odds of a downturn have climbed from 65% last month and to more than double what they were six months ago".

12. Santa season. "Yesterday's decline left the S&P 500 down 6.4% month-to-date in price terms, which puts December 2022 on track for the second-worst “Santa season” since the index began ticking in 1957".

13. Yen vs. USD. "The dollar has declined more than 11% against the yen over past two months—largest such decline since *December 2008*".

14. Gold interest. "Gold open interest at the Comex has slumped as prices have risen".

15. Gold covering. "This suggests shorts and hedgers are covering as we also see managed money going long(er)".

16. Bonds vs. pauses. "Historically, core bonds have performed well during Fed rate hike pauses".

17. REITs vs. pauses. "REITs returns have an average peak of 32.3% within 18 months following a Fed pause".

18. Equity factors. "Defensive & dividend strategies have offered relative shelter MTD, dominating SPDJIndices global factors; S&P 500 low volatility has captured < 1/2 benchmark’s losses, outperforming by 3.7% MTD; high beta is relative laggard both in U.S. and globally".

19. Investor flows (I). "Flows into global/broad equity funds have picked back up (global funds in particular have seen share of inflows over past month jump to 25%) ... government bond funds continue to take in steady amount after reaching a low near end of November".

20. Investor flows (II). "In sector-specific equity flows, outflows continued in Energy and Financials. Consumer Staples and Healthcare continue to see monthly inflows".

21. Weekly flows. "Last week (where S&P 500 was -2.1%), clients were net buyers of US equities ($2.8B) for the sixth straight week. But after five weeks of single stock inflows, buying was entirely ETF-driven (biggest week of ETF inflows since 2017)".

22. Talk vs. action. Widespread negative sentiment has yet to be reflected in portfolio allocations.

23. Buybacks (I). "We estimate Monday as the start of the final blackout window of the year with ~33% currently in their closed window. By the end of the week, we estimate ~54% of the S&P 500 will be in blackout".

24. Buybacks (II). "S&P 500 buybacks (rolling 4Q sum) in 3Q22 were $982 billion, down from 2Q22’s record >$1 trillion ... stil looking top heavy with top 20 companies accounting for 49% of overall buybacks".

25. Buybacks (III). "Corp. client buybacks were a steady % of mkt. cap most of ‘22 and below ’19 levels".

26. Stock pickers. And finally, "about 55% of actively managed large-cap mutual funds are on pace to beat their benchmarks this year".

Thanks for reading!