Jobless Claims Bounce Back to Prior Range
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After a historic drop which took first time claims down to their lowest level since 1973, jobless claims moved back up into their prior range in the latest week. While economists were expecting first time claims to come in at a level of 250K, the actual reading came in right near the mark at 251K. There’s not much to say about current levels that hasn’t already been said, but we would add that this marks the 90th straight week where claims have been below 300K. That’s the longest streak since 1970 when they went 161 weeks below 300k. Keep in mind, though, that the size of the US population was a lot smaller back then.
Even with this week’s increase in claims, the four-week moving average still declined (to 251K) but not by enough to set a new cycle low. The cycle low of 249.5K from seven weeks ago remains intact for now, but provided there are no upward revisions and we get a reading below 260K next week, the four-week moving average will make a new low.
On a non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) basis, claims increased 63.3K to 287.1K, but these types of increases are to be expected at this time of year. Even with this week’s jump, this week’s reading is the lowest for the current week of the year since 1973 and nearly 110K below the average of 397K for the current week of the year going back to 2000.
The Closer 11/22/16 – Home Sales Still Exist
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Looking for deeper insight on global markets and economics? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we take a look at earnings growth for the S&P 500 and its sectors as well as the new existing home sales data released today.
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Post-Election Losers
The average stock in the S&P 500 is up a few percentage points since the close on Election Day (11/8). But not all stocks are up. If you’re a “buy-the-dip” kind of investor instead of a momentum trader, below is a list of the worst performing S&P 500 stocks since Election Day. Most stocks are down on stock-specific news like earnings, but all of them are down more than 6%. TripAdvisor (TRIP) tops the list with a drop of 18.51%, followed by Patterson (PDCO), which fell 16%+ on earnings today. Tyson Foods (TSN), Centene (CNC), and Medtronic (MDT) round out the top five. Other notables on the list of losers include First Solar (FSLR), Philip Morris International (PM), Under Armour (UA), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), and Intuitive Surgical (ISRG).
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Chart of the Day: US % of World Market Cap
B.I.G. Tips – First Two Weeks
It may sound hard to believe, but today marks only the two week point since the election of President-Elect Trump. Already, though, we have seen big moves and rotations in the market, sending the S&P 500 higher by over 2.5%, ranking as one of the better initial rallies for a newly elected President. With that gain we wanted to see how the ‘Trump’ rally stacks up to other post-election market moves and what, if anything, it may say about the rest of the period between now and the inauguration and the next four years.
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ETF Trends: Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities – 11/22/16
Precious metals, especially metals miners, continue to underperform on a trailing 1 week basis. Other underperformers include Asian EM (Malaysia, the Philippines, and India), Biotech (a major outperformer after the election), and European equities. Gainers over the last week include Energy, semis, telecoms, retail, and small caps.
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Bespoke Stock Scores: 11/22/16
Dynamic Upgrades/Downgrades: 11/22/16
The Closer 11/21/16 – Trump Trades
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Looking for deeper insight on global markets and economics? In tonight’s Closer sent to Bespoke Institutional clients, we chart the performance of 9 different “Trump Trades”. We also update our tracking of the Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index.
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Streaks Without a New All-Time High
The S&P 500 came extremely close two times today, but came up short of taking out its all-time high of 2,193.81 seventy trading days ago back on 8/15. The third time was the charm, though, as the index just took out its summer high, ending a streak of 69 trading days without a new all-time high. Believe it or not, since the S&P 500 ended a streak of 1,382 trading days without a new high back in April 2013, the most recent streak of 69 trading days was the second longest streak the index has gone without making a new all-time high. Back in July, when we broke the streak of 287 trading days without a new high, there was optimism that it would mark an end to the range-bound trading we have seen since early 2015, but that rally quickly fizzled. Interestingly enough, it was the uncertainty of Donald Trump that contributed to the sideways trading leading up to the election, and now it’s also seemingly the Trump election that provided the catalyst to finally break us out of this most recent streak.
