Daily Chartbook #46

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

1. Streak over. Gas prices ticked up for the first time since June 13. 

2. US petroleum inventory levels. Stocks for crude, gasoline, and distillate for the week ending September 21.

3. Mortgage rates surge. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has reached late 2008 levels at 6.25%.

4. Existing home sales (I). Existing home sales in the US fell for the 7th consecutive month (longest streak since October 2007), dropping 0.4% in August and -19.87 YoY (12th consecutive month of negative YoY).

5. Existing home sales (II). Regional contributions to existing home sales.

6. Home price relief ahead. "The YoY change in the median price peaked at 25.2% in May 2021 and has now slowed to 7.7%. The YoY increase in August was smaller than in July (9.5%) and suggests the Case-Shiller index will slow sharply soon".

7. Prices for things are falling. Prices for "trucking costs, international shipping costs, gasoline prices, the ISM Prices Paid index, used cars, and Zillow's measure of rent" have all come down.

8. But… "The problem however, is that for all of the above, we haven't seen it feed through to consumer prices".

9. Inflation pain. The effects of inflation are most significantly felt by the lowest quintile of earners.

10. Import binge. "Americans have binged on imports since 2021, pressuring supply chains".

11. Shipping rates are easing. But shipping rates are coming and the "most dramatic declines have been those originating from Asia/Europe and ending in U.S".

12. Trucking rates also easing. And trucking rates in the US have rolled over with prices in some regions back at pre-pandemic levels.

13. Rent relief ahead. JPM Morgan expects rent inflation "to peak in the next few months and roll over; this is the largest contribution to Core Inflation".

14. Interest rates vs. valuations. Here's a zoomed-out look at the relationship between interest rates and equity valuations.

15. New Fed Dot Plot. The Fed lifted interest rates by 75 bps to 3.25. From @macroalf: "12 out of 19 FOMC members expect Fed Funds between 4.50% and 5.0% by the END of 2023. Fed pivot my a*s". Powell noted the FOMC was split between 100 and 125bps for the end of the year.

16. US2Y yield (I). The yield on US2Y Treasury bonds reached 4% for the first time since October 2007 ahead of the Fed’s decision.

17. US2Y yield (II). And surged as high as 4.123% following the rate hike.

18. Bonds knee-jerk. Here's the bond market's immediate reaction to the Fed meeting.

19. Dip buyers are back. "Equity ETF flows turned positive in a big way this past week after several weeks of outflows".

20. Risk appetite. Goldman's Risk Appetite Indicator is neutral.

21. Overweight sectors. Fund managers are most long Healthcare and most short Discretionary stocks

22. Net short. Net futures positions for leverage funds and asset managers are firmly short US stocks.

23. Bears > Bulls. There are more Investor Intelligence bears than bulls for the first time in 10 weeks. 

24. The earnings outlook is deteriorating. EPS downgrades continue to outnumber upgrades.

25. Financials vs. Tech. With rising interest rates around the world, “Financials have outperformed parent indices in all regions, while Tech has underperformed across the board” month-to-date.

26. Price-to-sales levels. "Price/sales ratio for NASDAQ (blue) is well off its peak but relatively elevated when looking back at history (above its pre-GFC peak); S&P 500’s P/S (orange) is slightly below January 2018 level; Russell 2000’s P/S (white) is below pre-GFC peak".

27. Global breadth is down. "Even priced in their local currencies, only 17% of world markets are above their 200-day averages (market usually does well when this is above 85% and struggles when it's below 35%)".

28. Historically bad. And finally, the S&P 500 is off to its 5th worth start to the year in history (-20.5% through the first 181 trading days).