Daily Chartbook #178

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

1. Truckload index. "2019 was called a ‘trucking bloodbath’ because conditions were so poor that many trucking companies filed for bankruptcy. For carriers operating in the spot market, conditions are worse today."

2. Unemployment rate. "3.5% in March (from 3.6% in Feb), 0.1% higher than the January reading (3.4%) which was the lowest rate we've seen since 1969."

3. Nonfarm payrolls. The US economy added 236k jobs in March vs. 239k expected.

4. Household survey. The "household survey jumped 577k, up markedly from February’s 177k gain … still a huge divergence in both series over past year."

5. Immigration vs. labor market. "Immigration is a key reason the labor market is gradually moving from very overheated to less overheated...high immigration is helpful for the Fed as it tries to cool down the labor market and slow down inflation."

6. Inflation expectations. "Consumers' expectations of year-ahead inflation ticked up to 4.75% (median) in March, from 4.23% in February, but this is still the second lowest monthly median print since May 2021. Three-year ahead expectations ticked up to 2.8% in March from 2.7% in Feb."

7. Credit conditions. "The share of U.S. households reporting it is harder to obtain credit than one year ago hit a new high in the New York Fed's consumer survey, which is around 10 years old."

8. Credit card debt (I). In February, "revolving credit (i.e., credit card debt) rose by just $5 billion, down sharply from the $12.8 billion in January, the $13.7 billion LTM average, and the lowest single increase since April 2021."

9. Credit card debt (II). Credit card debt as a percentage of disposable personal income remains below pre-pandemic levels.

10. Wholesale sales & inventories. "February wholesale trade sales (blue) +0.4% m/m vs. +0.6% est. & +0.4% in prior month (rev down from +1%) … inventories (orange) +0.1% vs. +0.2% est. & -0.5% prior."

11. Zero growth. "Consensus expects essentially zero percent growth in GDP and earnings over the coming three quarters...saying that over the next 9 months, we will see no real growth in consumer spending, capex spending, and hiring."

12. Used cars. "After 7 straight monthly declines following the peak last July, Used Car prices are moving higher again."

13. Oil prices. "Crude has booked three consecutive weeks of gains, it’s longest such streak this year."

14. Oil fund outflows. "WisdomTree’s Brent Crude Oil ETP…had an outflow of $55.7 million on Thursday, the largest one-day fall since late 2019…ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF...saw outflows of $158.5 million last week. That’s its biggest weekly drop since March 2022."

15. Gold ETF demand. "Gold’s recent rally has come with only a modest shift in worldwide gold ETF net demand."

16. Bond volatility. "Volatility in the US bond market over the last year is the highest we've seen since 1981-82."

17. Treasury shorts. "Hedge funds moved to short Treasuries aggressively before Friday's non-farm payrolls data. It was the biggest bearish positioning shift since March of 2022."

18. Stocks vs. bonds. "The correlation between US stocks and bonds over the last year is the highest we've seen since 1996-97."

19. Fund flows. "U.S. money market funds saw their fourth consecutive weekly inflow, totaling over $320 billion in net inflows since March 15."

20. CTA trends. "CTA SPX price trend to turn significantly positive [this] week, even in a bearish price path...NASDAQ-100 long position may see substantial increase."

21. Hedge funds vs. equities. "Hedge funds are reloading on bearish wagers on US equities, betting the latest market retreat will persist amid worsening economic data and corporate earnings."

22. Hedge funds vs. semis. “Tech was sold big over the past week, especially semis.”

23. Breadth thrust indicator. "The extremely rare Zweig Breadth Thrust just triggered. It has only happened 14 other times since 1950 and the S&P 500 was higher a year later. every. single. time. Up more than 23% on average a year later as well."

24. Equities vs. recessions. "8 out of the last 10 recessions saw drawdowns in the S&P 500 by over 20%."

25. Earnings season. 87% of the S&P 500 report earnings in the next 4 weeks.

See:  

26. Tech earnings. "Deutsche Bank expects tech earnings to rebound."

27. Q1 revenues. "$SPX is expected to report Y/Y revenue growth of 1.8% for Q1 2023, which would be the lowest revenue growth since Q3 2020 (-1.1%)."

28. Q1 earnings. "$SPX is expected to report a Y/Y earnings decline of -6.8% for Q1 2023, which would be the largest decline since Q2 2020 (-31.8%)."

Thanks for reading!