Daily Chartbook #117

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

1. Greenhouse gas emissions. "The US has fallen further behind its Paris climate agreement targets after emissions increased by 1.3 per cent last year".

2. Freight pulse. "Morgan Stanley saw some signs of a positive inflection in broad macro sentiment and inventory levels, setting up for a potential rebound in the coming quarters".

3. Financial conditions (I). "Friday's FCI easing was the [2nd] largest since April of 2020".

4. Financial conditions (II). "Conditions are crossing the zero line where the Fed comes out with significant hawkish rhetoric. But resistance is there to be broken and the more hawkish the Fed, the more financial conditions rise above the zero resistance line".

5. Consumer credit. "Consumers continue to borrow … through November 2022, revolving credit was up 16.9% year/year, a step up from 10.3% increase in October and in higher end of range over past couple decades".

6. Small biz (I). Small business optimism fell to a 6-month low in December.

7. Small biz (II). "Small business hiring intentions have rolled over a lot (per NFIB) but are still near the highest levels of pre-pandemic times".

8. Small biz (III). "A weak NFIB small business price plans number is an encouraging sign for the inflation outlook".

9. Temporary hires indicator. "Classic leading indicator is looking ugly. but from what I've read, economists seem split on the accuracy of the current signal".

10. All Country World Index. "More than 70% of ACWI markets are above their 200-day average. That's the most since Nov 2021".

11. RoW vs. US. "The present ROW outperformance of 13.7 points over the last 50 days…is over 4 standard deviations" above average.

12. S&P vs. Stoxx. "The ratio of the S&P to the Stoxx Europe 600 has broken its 100-WMA, high interest rates are hammering US tech which for many years was the outperformed".

13. Bearish bonds. "Bearish positioning in Treasury futures is hitting extreme levels".

14. Corporate credit fund flows. IG/HY bond funds saw $235 billion in outflows in 2022.

15. USD reversal. "Two charts which clearly speak for an upcoming trend reversal in the USD Index".

16. CTA equities short. "Shock therapy on Friday was painful. Let's see if they start running to cover those shorts in this mean reversion mania market".

17. CTA commodities long. "Not extremely long, but the change from short to long has been rather violent".

18. CTA gold long. "Getting rather big here…"

19. Bitcoin HODL. "Conviction amongst long-term Bitcoin holders doesn't get better than this. Bitcoin reserve risk is at its lowest level. EVER".

20. Fintwit vs consumer. "1yr high in Goldman's Twitter Sentiment Index".

21. Equity put/call ratio. "Retail is betting on a big downside move in the market...Equity put/call ratio has been trending higher...And is at its highest level since 1998…Max pain is towards the upside".

22. Investor flows. "Investor flows have skewed a bit more risk-on to start year ... large-/mid-cap and broad equity funds have made up 19% of inflows on rolling 1m basis ... aggregate and gov bond flows saw bulk of inflows at 23.1% and 18.5%, respectively".

23. Golden cross. "Currently, over 51% of $SPX components have a golden cross setup, which is the highest amount we've seen early last year and the highest amount we've seen in an uptrend since late 2020".

24. Leading indicators. Morgan Stanley's "economic indicators continue to suggest weaker earnings ahead".

25. Earnings guidance. "Companies are starting this year with relatively positive earnings guidance".

26. Earnings dispersion. "The dispersion across analyst estimates has risen to the highest since the pandemic surge".

27. Earnings & sales consensus. "Consensus now expects the S&P 500 earnings recession to last until 2H, with sales growth decelerating to a near-zero pace by midyear".

28. Mean reversion. "By the simplest assumptions, mean reversion to historical earnings growth would imply S&P 500 trailing earnings should hover around $160-$170, a 20%+ decline from $221 highs".

29. Setting the tone. "Median rest of year return after a first week gain of over 1% has been 13.9% compared to 5.6% in all other years since 1953".

Thanks for reading!