Daily Chartbook #275

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

1. Median sales price. "There are so few homes for sale that prices are up 4.5% annually, the biggest increase in nearly a year."

2. Supply shortage. "Prices are rising due to a supply shortage: The total number of homes on the market is down 18% year over year, the biggest decline since February 2022."

3. Homebuyer sentiment. Consumers' attitude towards homebuying is hovering at multi-decade lows.

4. Remote work. "Postings for jobs that can potentially be done remotely are falling fast relative to national norms."

5. Wage growth. "The Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker was 5.3 percent in August, down from 5.7 percent in June."

6. Jobless claims. Initial jobless claims dropped well below expectations to the lowest since February while continuing claims also fell more than expected to a 6-month low.

7. Card spending (I). Card spending across categories in 2023 has generally tracked above last year's levels.

8. Card spending (II). "Total card spending per HH was up 0.7% y/y in the week ending Sep 2…Hurricanes jacked it up though."

9. Productivity & unit labor costs. "The final Q2 readings for unit labor costs and nonfarm productivity released this morning showed slight upticks versus expectations."

10. Financial conditions. "Financial conditions are tightening once again in the US."

11. Monetary policy. According to a Chicago Fed model, "the policy tightening that’s already been done is sufficient to bring inflation back near the Fed’s target by the middle of 2024 while avoiding a recession."

12. Corporate debt (I). "If you aggregate up the listed sector’s accounts, they show interest expenses rising relative to profits or sales."

13. Corporate debt (II). "And if you look at the nonfinancial corporate sector’s balance sheet in the Fed’s Z.1, it shows the share of total debt likely to be linked to short-term rates has been rising. This is the flipside of the growth of leveraged loans, private credit etc."

14. Fiscal spending. "Even without factoring in the cost of servicing the debt, fiscal spending alone represents over 25% of GDP in the US."

15. Treasury receipts vs. outlays. "Moderating growth momentum has pushed revenues lower as a portion of GDP while outlays have continued to increase."

16. Global M&A. "Global M&A volumes are still down 40% year to date, the lowest year-to-date level since 2013, excluding COVID."

17. US crude inventories. "Including the SPR, this is the lowest level of total crude inventories in America since 1985.”

18. Commodities vs. USD. "Commodities have not reacted as usual to movements of the dollar."

19. USD A/D. "The US Dollar Advance Decline line at fresh 19-year highs!"

20. AAII. "Investor sentiment turned more bullish (43%). Net % Bullish is in the 68th percentile. Bearish -4.9%, Neutral -4.2%."

21. NAAIM. Active manager exposure to equities fell to 49.7 from 61.2.

22. Corporate sentiment vs. EPS. "The significant increase in corporate sentiment indicates a potential recovery in earnings."

23. EPS trough. "If Q2 marks the EPS growth trough then value should outperform."

24. Net revenue revisions. The S&P 500 has seen positive net revenue revisions for 7 consecutive months. Shows 3-month moving average of number of estimates up less estimates down, expressed as a % of total estimates.

25. Net earnings revisions.  And net earnings revisions have been positive for the last 3 months.

26. FANG forward P/E. "Forward P/E for largest/most popular growth stocks has some air that’s come out, but current multiple still sitting firmly above longer-term average (orange line)."

27. Big 5 decline. The collective net income of the "big 5" (Apple, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) over the past 4 quarters fell 9% compared to the year before.

28. Top 20 vs. bottom 480. The top 20 largest S&P 500 companies have added $4.16tn in market cap value YTD, nearly 9x the amount added by the bottom 480.

29. Highs vs. lows. "For the first time since early June, September begins with more stocks having made a 3-month low than a 3-month high."

See:

30. SPX vs. Fed cuts. And finally, “if the Fed cuts rates next year, is that a good thing?"

Thanks for reading!