Daily Chartbook #60

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

1. US oil production up in 1H 2022. "U.S. crude oil production averaged 11.1 million barrels per day in the first half of 2022, up from an annual average of 10.8 million barrels per day in 2021".

2. Worst yet to come. "The IMF cut its forecast for global growth next year to 2.7%, from 2.9% seen in July and 3.8% in January, adding that it sees a 25% probability that growth will slow to less than 2%".

3. Small biz (I). The Small Business Optimism Index improved by 1.9 to 91.8 while the Uncertainty Index increased by 7 to 74.

4. Small biz (II). Inflation is still far and away the single most important problem for small businesses.

5. Leading jobs indicator. Trucking jobs, which "always lead payrolls" just saw their biggest monthly drop since April 2009.

6. Households tighten their belts. NY Fed forecasts "for household-spending growth over the coming year dropped sharply, notching the steepest one-month decline since June 2013".

7. Inflation expectations (I). Consumer expectations for 1-year inflation declined to 5.4% from 5.7% in September while 3-year inflation expectations ticked up to 2.9% from 2.8%.

8. Inflation expectations (II). "Matrix of various inflation expectation data points".

9. Talk is cheap. AAII sentiment "is lower today than it was during Global Financial Crisis, yet investors today are willing to pay more for forward earnings, as shown by S&P 500 forward P/E being higher today than it was in 2008."

10. Risk off. Sentiment across assets remains largely risk-off.

11. Record put buying. "Institutional traders spent another record amount on hedges".

12. Smart money is record short. Hedge fund and asset managers are record net short US equity futures.

13. Light positioning. Stock positioning has moved up off "extremely light" levels.

14. Stock ownership breakdown. "Demand for US equities is driven by US households, foreign investors, passive mutual funds and ETFs".

15. Investor flows. "Government bond funds remain a popular place in which investors have hidden for safety recently, but large- and mid-cap equity funds continue to see interest over past month as well".

16. Macro in the driver's seat. "Nobody cares about single stocks. It is all about index hedging."

17. EM outflows rise. "Capital outflows from emerging markets have picked up over the past month against the backdrop of a strong US dollar".

18. Semis pain. "The global chip sector has now lost over $240 billion in market cap, thanks in part due to growing US restrictions on selling to China".

19. Low buybacks. "Buybacks typically pick up over the next month, but have been tracking below average most of this year".

20. Leading tech. "Tech sector performance starts to bounce back 18 months before fundamentals return".

21. Tech lag. "Nasdaq 100 earnings have been lagging S&P  500 earnings for 12 months".

22. Forward EPS estimates. S&P 600 forward EPS estimates (white) have been stronger this year relative to estimates for the Nasdaq 100 (orange).

23. EPS forecasts. BofA is expecting EPS YoY growth of 6% in 2022 and -9% in 2023.

24. Revisions breadth. S&P 500 EPS earnings revisions breadth (yellow) remains negative.

25. Earnings slashed. "Q3 earnings estimates have been cut significantly".

26. Stocks vs. CPI. And finally, “over the past decade, never have stocks been so negatively reactive to an economic indicator as they are now to CPI”.

Thanks for reading!