Daily Chartbook #132

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

1. US petroleum inventory monitor. "US total commercial petroleum inventories rose 1.6 MMbbl last week on".

2. Mortgage demand. "Purchase activity is down 41% year-over-year unadjusted.  This is near housing bust levels".

3. Goldilocks. "None of the indicators the NBER recession committee normally looks at suggest that we are in a recession at the moment… It continues to look like a soft landing".

4. Healthy consumer. "Consumer balance sheets still healthy... Financials leverage is still near record lows".

5. National Financial Conditions Index. NFCI "edged down to –0.35 in the week ending January 27, suggesting financial conditions loosened again".

6. Payrolls. "January ADP payrolls +106k vs. 180k est. & 253k in prior month (rev up from 235k); small firms shed 75k jobs, mid-sized added 64k, and large added 128k … leisure/hospitality led gains with 95k while trade/transportation/utilities led declines with 41k drop".

7. JOLTs (I). Job openings increased to 11 million, above estimates of 10.25 million.

8. JOLTs (II). Detailed breakdown.

9. JOLTs (III). "Big jump in the vacancy to unemployment ratio as unemployment declined and openings popped. This metric was already trending up in Q4".

10. Manufacturing PMI (I). PMI fell for the fifth straight month to 47.4 (below expectations of 48) for the third consecutive month of contraction. S&P Global US Manufacturing PMI ticked up to 46.9 from 46.2

11. Manufacturing PMI (II). "Under the hood, the PMI shows rising inflation, weaker production, and lower orders - screaming 'stagflation' - and ISM's data confirms the rebound in prices". 

12. Manufacturing PMI (III). "Going back 75 years, the *only* time that new orders have been this low and a recession did not occur was in the middle of the Korean War".

13. Global PMIs. "By our count, of the manufacturing PMIs released thus far, 40% are in expansion territory. This is the highest level in three months. Not good, but factory conditions are not getting any worse".

14. Fed hikes. "Fed slows rate increases but signals more to come. Raises benchmark rate by 25 bps to 4.5%-4.75% target range. BUT repeats ‘ongoing increases' will be appropriate. FOMC statement is a bit more hawkish than anticipated as "ongoing increases" (plural) is kept".

15. Recession Fed funds rate. "After 40 years of lower lows in recession, 2023 may be the first recession in which the Fed funds rate ends up higher relative to pre recession levels".

16. Margin debt. "Margin debt is the food for both the bull and bear. IF the margin deleveraging cycle is complete, the releveaging of margin deb will provide the buying power for the bulls".

17. Bullish January. Last month marked a sharp turnaround for most assets.

18. Post-January. "A >5% gain in Jan, on the heels of a red year the year before, tends to be bullish. The full year has finished higher 5 of 5 times, up close to 30% on average".

19. Under the hood. "Jan looked calm for large caps on surface (VIX dropped from 22 to 19) but there was chaos under hood: spread between best-performing factor, High Beta & worst-performing Momentum was 17%, highest factor spread since Feb 2021 (2x post-2010 average of 6%)".

20. Bulls vs. bears. "Bull-bear spread breaking above Aug 2022 peak suggests investors are ready to embrace the rally".

21. Recommended allocations. "Bonds are loved, cash is reviled, and Wall Street is 'meh' on equities".

22. Money market funds. "Will retail eventually give in to chasing "hot" stuff, or do they stay happy with the higher yield on deposits?"

23. Beta. "Large cap Energy and Financials went from risky to safe, Tech/TMT and Discretionary went from safe to risky".

24. Put/call premium. "With all due caveats to exceedingly small sample size and subpar results during first two months after a signal, the Put/Call Premium rarely gets above 1.60. These results show what happened when it dropped back below".

25. Positive momentum. "It has been one of the longest uninterrupted runs of positive momentum since 2000".

26. Earnings momentum. "Based on a 1m momentum score, earnings is less worse than it was during most of 2022".

27. Forward P/E. "Year/year % change in forward EPS growth for S&P 500 now just barely positive at +0.5% ... prior moments with same rate preceded further drawdowns in earnings".

28. Earnings progression. "The weekly progression of quarterly growth estimates shows an incoming tide of negative growth numbers. As estimates tend to come down as we head towards earnings season, it looks like the next two quarters will be well into negative territory".

Thanks for reading!