Daily Chartbook #272

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

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1. Freight rates. "Shipping rates (40ft container from Shanghai to Los Angeles shown) have picked up throughout summer, but nowhere near spike we saw in 2021-2022."

2. Geopolitics vs. reshoring. As geopolitical risks rise, so do mentions of "reshoring" on corporate earnings calls.

3. Credit Managers Index. "CMI report looking decidedly weaker in August."

See: ,

4. Maturity profile. "While US$2.6tn of US investment-grade corporate bonds are due to mature in the next five years, another US$4.4tn will only mature after 2028."

5. Bidenomics. "Bidenomics is already having a powerful impact on US investment in manufacturing capacity, which has surged during the first 12 months of the programme."

6. Peak ratio = Fed done. A peak in the job openings/unemployed ratio (lowest since September 2021) suggests the Fed is done hiking.

7. Non-farm payrolls (I).

8. Non-farm payrolls (II). The "temporary help services" component (leading indicator for job trends) has declined for 7 consecutive months.

See:

9. Unemployment/participation rate. The unemployment rate rose from 3.5% to 3.8% in July (the highest since Feb 2022) largely driven by an increase in the participation rate which rose from 62.6% to 62.8% (the highest since Feb 2020).

10. Wages. "In month/month terms, average hourly earnings growth +0.2% vs. +0.4% prior … slowest growth since February 2022."

11. ISM Manufacturing PMI. July manufacturing improved to 47.7 (from 46.4, est 47.0) but contracted for the 10th consecutive month while new orders declined sharply and prices paid increased by the most since February.

12. S&P Global Manufacturing PMI. “Business conditions facing US manufacturers worsened further in August…A sharper fall in new orders led to a renewed contraction in output, while firms continued to deplete their backlogged work and stocks of finished goods.”

13. BRICS vs. oil exports. "The current BRICS members accounted for 14.2% of world total crude oil exports in 2022, while the newly invited BRICS members accounted for a further 25.4% of the total."

14. Fixed income flows. "Global bond funds continued their positive streak and had $1.2bn inflows for the week ending on August 30....US funds attracted $2bn" for their 35th consecutive week of inflows.

15. Households vs. UST. "US households’ holdings of Treasury securities have surged from US$610bn at the end of 2021 to a record US$2.27tn at the end of 1Q23."

16. China vs. UST. "China's holdings of US Treasuries just reached its lowest level in 14 years. Now down almost $481B from peak levels."

17. US10Y streak. "10-year Treasury on course for 3rd consecutive loss (-0.3% in ‘23, -17.0% in ’22, -3.9% in ’21)...has never occurred in 250-year history of US republic."

18. Client allocations. Clients decreased their exposure to equities while increasing their cash allocations.

19. Client flows. BofA private clients have been "buying Japan, growth, REITs ETFs, selling TIPS, utilities, financials past 4 weeks."

20. Tech fund flows. "10th straight week of inflows ( $5.1bn) & largest since May’23."

21. Global breadth. Global stock breadth is at its narrowest since 2003

22. NYSE breadth. "But short-term breadth is improving among NYSE-listed stocks."

23. Golden crosses. "More sectors continue to make golden cross signals with the total now up to nine, the most since the October lows. Only Utilities and Real Estate remain on death crosses."

24. Growth vs. Value. "Looks like Growth > Value is mostly a US story."

See:

25. NTM EPS. "S&P 500 earnings expectations for the next 12 months continue to climb."

26. EPS estimates (I). "This quarter marked the first increase in the bottom-up EPS estimate over the first two months of a quarter since Q3 2021 (+3.8%)."

27. EPS estimates (II). "At the sector level, seven sectors witnessed an increase in their bottom-up EPS estimate for CY 2023 from June 30 to August 31."

28. SPX vs. VIX seasonality. "Stock market performance in September ranks as the worst month of the year. However, if the VIX fell below 14 in August, the S&P 500 was higher 89% of the time over the next month."

29. Assets vs. recessions. "Looking at previous recessions, gold typically performs the best out of the major asset classes (stocks, bonds, corporate debt and commodities)."

30. Post-streak performance. And finally, “after the end of a five-month winning streak [which stocks are currently coming off of], the market has historically continued higher over the next six months, generating an average gain of 7.3%.”

Have a great weekend!