Apr 27, 2022
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Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we start out tonight’s note with a rundown of the important earnings released after the closing bell (page 1) followed by a look at the bond market carnage year to date (page 2). Turning to macro data, we then go over today’s housing releases (page 3) followed by dives into the latest data from the EIA (pages 4) and inventory and trade data (pages 5 and 6). We finish with a review of the 5-year note auction (page 7).
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Apr 26, 2022
Log-in here if you’re a member with access to the Closer.
Looking for deeper insight into markets? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we begin tonight’s Closer by taking a look at how close major indices are to new 52-week lows after today’s heavy dose of selling. We also show how the best and worst stocks yesterday performed today (page 1). We then recap tonight’s notable earnings released after the bell (page 2). Turning to macro data, we review today’s new home sales figures (pages 3 and 4) and home price indices including the shift between low and high tax metros (page 5). We then dive into preliminary durable goods numbers (page 6), consumer sentiment’s turn lower (page 7), and the 2 year note auction (page 8).
See today’s full post-market Closer and everything else Bespoke publishes by starting a 14-day trial to Bespoke Institutional today!
Apr 26, 2022
The Richmond Fed’s manufacturing survey was released this morning showing a modest improvement in conditions in the month of April. The headline number rose by a point to 14 which is still in the middle of the pandemic range of readings and the highest level since December.
In spite of the improvement in the composite index—a weighted average of shipments, new orders, and employment—the breadth of this month’s report was negative with over half of the categories declining month over month. Two of those declining categories were new orders and employment which are again inputs for the composite. That means the higher reading of the composite was entirely thanks to the 8-point increase in shipments.
Looking across other areas of the report, expenditures were weaker while inventories are recovering from historic lows. While business conditions are mixed to deteriorating, supply chains are showing signs of improvement as evidenced by the increase in shipments.
While shipments were an area of strength, another input to the composite, new orders, fell 4 points and is back near the middle of its historical range. Expectations, however, experienced a sizeable rebound with that index rising 9 points. While that increase bucks the trend of weak expectations readings relative to current conditions that we have seen in other regional Fed surveys (which we discussed in last night’s Closer), this index’s increase was the exception rather than the rule. As shown in the table above, only a handful of other expectations categories rose month over month with many declines ranking in the bottom decile of monthly moves.
The big increase to shipments left that index at the highest level since last July as backlog of orders are growing at a substantially more modest pace compared to earlier in the pandemic. One likely reason that both of these readings are improving is a coincident improvement in supply chain stress. The index for lead times saw an 8-point decline ranking in the bottom 5% of all monthly moves. That leaves the index one point above the December low of 35.
Employment metrics were mixed this month. The region’s firms are still hiring on a net basis, but hiring has peaked and declined again in April. That was in spite of firms also reporting better availability of workers with in-demand skills as that index rose to the highest level since July 2020. With that being said, the negative number indicates a still insufficient supply of quality talent. Wages, meanwhile, saw one of the larger increases in recent months rising to the highest level since September. The average workweek was unchanged at a healthy level in the top 5% of its historical range, but expectations are calling for declines in hours worked on the horizon. Click here to learn more about Bespoke’s premium stock market research service.
