| Date | Prior | Current | Rating | |
| Chicago Fed Nat'l Activity M/M | Feb-20 | -0.25 | 0.16 | C+ |
| Richmond Fed Mfg M/M | Mar-20 | -2.00% | 2.00% | C+ |
| Durable Goods M/M | Feb-20 | -0.20% | 1.20% | C+ |
| RedBook W/W | 3/24/2020 | 8.50% | 9.10% | C+ |
| New Home Sales M/M | Feb-20 | 764K | 765K | C |
| FHFA HPI M/M | Jan-20 | 0.60% | 0.30% | C |
| FHFA HPI Y/Y | Jan-20 | 5.20% | 5.20% | C |
| State Street Investor Confidence | Mar-20 | 77.9 | 74,5 | C- |
| Jobless Claims | 3/26/2020 | 281K | 3.28M | F |
| GDP | Q4:19 | 2.10% | 2.10% | C |
| Corporate Profits | Q4:19 | -1.10% | 3.10% | C+ |
| Personal Income M/M | Feb-20 | 0.60% | 0.60% | C |
| Consumer Spending M/M | Feb-20 | 0.20% | 0.20% | C |
| Consumer Sentiment M/M | Mar-20 | 95.9 | 89.1 | C- |
Once again, anything before March should have an * next to it.
The obvious headline is the Jobless Claims, which came in with a surreal 3.28 MILLION, earning the first F I've ever assigned in the Week in Review. If that doesn't deserve one, what does? When you see a spike in jobless claims, you expect ripple effects, but at this volume, Tsunami effects would seem more reasonable. Wall Street seems to have discounted it. We'll see how it plays out.
State Street Investors lost some confidence. They must be taking a longer term view of things.
Consumers lost several tics, a trend that will likely continue.
Richmond Fed came in pretty positive for March. I have to assume their metrics flew under the radar and next month will be more reflective?
Retail remains strong as, I assume, people stock up.
Q4 was good based on Corp profits and a mild GDP. I expect Q1:20 to measure OK to good as well but that will change for Q2:20 and quite possibly beyond.
I'm operating in uncharted territory here and I am sure many of you feel the same. There is not enough data to get a concrete feel for things though I remain pessimistic. I'll go with a likely generous D+ on the week based largely on the Jobless claims.
Thanks very much Tim!
It's wonderful to have this report from you again!
Are there more F's ahead do you think?
Hard to say if there will be more F's, but I'd be more surprised to see none than I would to see several, if that makes sense. We're in the midst of the most intense shock to the economy in history, IMO. If you disagree, I'll need examples.
But on the plus side, the week in Review chart looks much better in this format of MF. A vast improvement over the old :-)
I'll be very interested in watching how the US/World economy weathers this storm. The duration is the wild card. I think we can handle a couple weeks. I think a couple months will inflict long term damage and beyond that?
Agree again.
This is a huge wild card. If COVID-19 is seasonal and diminished this Spring in the Northern Hemisphere this Spring like the flu does every year, then what?
Things get much better for sure but
It could increase in the S.Hemisphere.
It could come back in the N.Hemisphere in the Fall, like the flu.
We could have some drugs to effectively treat it.
People will NOT be as panicked with round 2 after they saw the worst of COVID-19 and survived, limiting fear of the unknown worst case scenarios.
How much COVID-19 is left in October will determine how tough we need to get in managing it.
When the vaccine is close to wide spread distribution, all this goes away but will be awhile.
This will be a key issue for the November 2020 election.
The dems and especially the MSM are trying to convince us that President Trump completely messed up and CAUSED things to get this bad. That will continue and part of that narrative has been to convince us that things are really bad and getting much worse without a light at the end of the tunnel. That message causes Trump to not get elected in November.
The other side is being optimistic, telling us that good things from good people are helping us effectively fight COVID-19 and that we will win the battle very soon. That message also gets Trump re elected.
There is also a tremendous amount of very productive, non political, non partisan stuff happening from both parties and most of the country..............but very little of it is on CNN or CNBC and others like that.
Sorry for the politics but I think that people's frame of mind going forward will be an important element on how well the economy does. More than ever before in this extraordinarily emotional environment.
The value of stocks and the stock market is based on people's perception of the value.
We can measure certain fundamentals that define value that people will consider but the bottom line is that peoples confidence or lack of it will be super imposed on the entire market(s).
+20% in confidence vs -20% in confidence will cause a huge difference in whether people are buying stocks(and making other investments) or selling them (avoiding other investments).
Treading the line of NTR, the approval of Trump handling of the virus continues to improve. This translates to me as optimism.
These exact same circumstances from a medical and statistical standpoint with an optimistic population vs the current pessimism would have resulted in much less damage to the markets.
Realistic optimism is a very good thing.
as opposed to unrealistic panic.