After being the only people who were caught off guard by last week’s hurricane-induced surge in jobless claims, economists upped their estimates for first-time claims this week and, not surprisingly, overshot in their forecasts.  While the consensus estimate spiked up to 310K, the actual reading fell from 298K down to 284K.  For now, at least, the streak of weeks (132) below 300K remains intact.  At first glance, one would think the jobless claims reading should be higher given the one-two punch of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but what needs to be kept in mind is the fact that this week’s print was through 9/8, so it doesn’t quite include the impacts of Irma on Florida.  Irma’s impact is likely to show up next week.

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With two straight weeks of elevated readings, even the four-week moving average is starting to rise.  This week’s reading ticked up to 263.25K from 250.25K, which is close to 30K above the post recession low of 235.5K from back in mid-May.

Short interest figures for the end of August were released on Tuesday, and as far as the overall trends were concerned, let’s just say that investors were quite nervous heading into what has historically been the stock market’s worst performing month.  To see our complete analysis of the recent results, sign up for Bespoke Premium or Bespoke Institutional now.   One sector where investors are particularly negative these days is in the Consumer Discretionary sector. Through the end of August, the average stock in the S&P 500 had 11.7% of its float sold short.  That’s the highest average short interest reading since March 2009!  Think about that for a minute — investors haven’t been this negative towards the Consumer Discretionary sector since the very beginning of the bull market!

The main culprit behind the high levels of short interest has been in the Retailing group, where average short interest levels currently stand at 15.6%.  That’s the highest level for this Industry Group since September 2008 when Lehman went bankrupt!

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The reason for the negative sentiment towards retail stocks is obviously the “Death by Amazon” trade as well as the shift in consumer preferences towards experiences over products.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the short interest levels of Multi-Line retailers.  Here, short interest levels have gone ‘hockey stick,’ surging from an already high level of 12% at the end of last year to an absurdly high level of 25.2% as of the end of September.  That kind of surge in such a short period of time is the type of move we saw in banks and brokerage stocks during the height of the financial crisis.

Tesla (TSLA) has zoomed past both Ford (F) and General Motors (GM) to become the largest automaker in the US.  You can see the meteoric rise for Tesla (TSLA) in the market cap comparison chart below.

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Tesla (TSLA) is not only larger than the two main US automakers, but it’s also larger than many of the international automakers that you’re familiar with as well.  Toyota (TM) is by far the largest company in the table below, but Tesla (TSLA) is in spitting distance of the three German automakers — Daimler (DAI), Volkswagen (VLKAY), and BMW.

Up until recently, Tesla (TSLA) was always viewed as a car company first and foremost.  Within the last year or so, however, the narrative has changed.  The standard view now seems to be that Tesla is really a Tech company that happens to manufacture cars (among other things).  It’s much easier to justify Tesla’s market cap and valuation when you view it as a Tech company versus comparing it to blue-chip US automakers like Ford or GM.