Daily Chartbook #157

Welcome back to Daily Chartbook: the day’s best charts & insights, curated.

1. Active listings. "Inventories of for-sale homes rose again, but the gain was the lowest we’ve seen since December."

2. Resilient households. "Despite widespread concerns, we see little evidence of disproportionate financial strain among lower-income HHs. In fact, they are now outpacing upper-income HHs in y/y spending growth in several categories."

3. Card spending growth. "Total card spending growth was solid in Feb, as a big increase in services spending offset a drop in goods spending."

4. Multivariate core. "Due to revised seasonal factors, a model of underlying trend inflation produced by the New York Fed (the “multivariate core”) ticked up to 4.9% in January after initially reported to have been around 3.7% at the end of 2022 (December was revised to 4.8%)."

5. Hard vs. soft data. "Hard economic data has been surprising to the upside relative to soft economic data."

6. Challenger cuts (I). "Job cut announcements from [Challenger Gray] +410% year/year in February, slightly lower than +440% in January … most cuts in tech sector; health care/products sector in second."

7. Challenger cuts (II). "Technology companies cut the most jobs last month with 21,387, 28% of all cuts announced in February."

8. Jobless claims. "Initial jobless claims which jumped from 190k to 211k last week (above the 195k exp), the highest since December (but still extremely low historically). Continuing claims also rose to 1.718mm (near cycle highs) and well above the 1.66mm expected."

9. Divergence. There is still a wide divergence between Challenger job cuts and initial jobless claims.

10. NFP outlook (I). "The ongoing decline in US job openings on a year-over-year basis suggests that tomorrow's update on nonfarm private payrolls for Feb will shift down on an annual basis."

11. NFP outlook (II). "Estimates range from a low of 100k to a high of 325k. Economists have underestimated the actual payrolls release a record ten months in a row and 12 of the last 13 months."

12. HY vs. IG. "Fewer and fewer high yield bonds are being traded, currently at the lowest levels in decades relative to IG."

13. Yield gap. "Stocks are their least attractive relative to bonds since the end of the crisis year 2009."

14. Retail options. "Retail as a % of options trading has moved higher lately, but the longer term trend stays intact."

15. Volatility panic."From hated to must have in a few hours. Massive moves in VIX and VVIX today causing a lot of p/l pain."

16. AAII sentiment. "Latest AAII survey shows little change from last week. Bulls rather low, bears slightly excited."

17. Active manager exposure. "NAAIM Exposure up to 60 now (from 47). Tuesday did not deter the bulls."

18. Equity ETF flows. "60-day flows double dip again while 12M flows back to lows."

19. CTA bond exposure. "CTAs overall allocation to bonds is in the 5th percentile."

20. Mutual fund beta. "Mutual funds’ beta to the S&P 500 continues to sink. Many funds have been overweight in defensive shares while maintaining larger-than-normal cash levels."

21. Buybacks (I). "Announced buybacks have surged over the last few weeks, but actual repurchases have stalled."

22. Buybacks (II). "Stock repurchases were down 20% in the fourth quarter, with the pace decelerating since the first quarter of last year."

23. Secondary offerings. "Over the past 10 days alone, US companies have raised more than $6 billion in equity sales, their biggest windfall in more than a year."

24. Rich S&P P/E. "The S&P 500 trades rich to its 10-year average PE multiple (17.5x vs. 17.2x), but not solely due to Big Tech valuations. Non-Tech sectors like Staples, Health Care and Industrials also have higher multiples than their long-run averages."

25. Seasonality. "Positive Q1 seasonality may prompt more FOMO....biggest seasonal month upcoming."

26. Equities vs. economy. "Equities can perform really well when the economy performs really badly."

27. Bank test. And finally, “worst day for banks since June 2020. A big down day like this tends to have follow through.”

Thanks for reading!