| Date | Prior | Current | Rating | |
| Pending Home Sales M/M | Feb-20 | 5.20% | 2.40% | C |
| Dallas Fed M/M | Mar-20 | 16.4 | -35.4 | D |
| Chicago PMI M/M | Mar-20 | 49.0 | 47.8 | C- |
| Consumer Confidence M/M | Mar-20 | 130.70 | 120.00 | C- |
| RedBook W/W | 3/28/2020 | 9.10% | 6.30% | C |
| Case Shiller HPI M/M | Jan-20 | 0.40% | 0.30% | C |
| Case Shiller HPI Y/Y | Jan-20 | 2.90% | 3.10% | C+ |
| PMI MFG Index M/M | Mar-20 | 50.70 | 48.50 | C- |
| PMI Svc Index M/M | Mar-20 | 49.40 | 39.80 | D+ |
| ISM MFG IndexM/M | Mar-20 | 50.1 | 49.1 | C |
| ISM Non-MFG IndexM/M | Mar-20 | 57.3 | 52.5 | C- |
| Factory Orders M/M | Feb-20 | -0.50% | 0% | C |
| Construction Spending M/M | Feb-20 | 1.80% | -1.30% | C- |
| Construction Spending Y/Y | Feb-20 | 6.80% | 6.00% | C |
| Jobless Claims W/W | 3/28/2020 | 3.283M | 6.648M | F |
| Employment Situation M/M | Mar-20 | 273,000 | -701,000 | F |
Some dismal numbers, some better than expected.
Jobs numbers were no surprise though the Employment Situation from the BLS seemed a bit generous at -701K with jobless claims in the millions. I'm sure there's an explanation and I May look into it later.
Dallas Fed was hammered. I spent a little time on that earlier this week, but as it is influenced heavily by the energy sector and it's also been hit by the virus, no other outcome could be expected. Chicago PMI remains in negative territory.
Consumer Confidence settled 10 tics but is still relatively high from an historic perspective. I hope that remains. Confidence may be our greatest asset right now.
PMI Svc got slammed and PMI MFG went negative Likewise for ISM MFG while ISM Svc (Non MFG) remained positive tho ~5 points below previous readings. I suspect that drop will continue next month. After that? (I give far more weight to ISM)
Retail remains brisk tho well below the earlier near double digit lofty levels. Perhaps a sign that people are settling down?
Although I See rays of optimism, I grade on the current numbers, and the best I can do this week is a D. The job numbers are flat out scary, but I temper that with Consumer Confidence.
PS.. For obvious reasons, I am ignoring any metrics prior to March. I report them cuz they're there.
Thanks very much for all the work and for the value that this provides.
I was wondering how in the world that consumer confidence could possibly come in so high at 120???
Part of that is because the survey deadline is March 19th and the negativity was still far from bottoming then.
My question for you Tim, is about how they conduct the survey. Obviously the results don't all come in on the 18th and 19th. It's a monthly survey so it covers the past month, possibly weighted towards the end of the month......unsure. I'm familiar with the research firm Nielson from when they did ratings for television during 4 different months of the year(Feb-May-July-November) but this is completely different.
So do they track the same entities every month?
When tracking, do they track a metric that averages their confidence during the entire period?
Or, are they getting results from, let's say late February from different sources, then early, then mid March and average them?
The next one for April, will likely be much lower.............but the last week of that survey, could actually feature increased optimism in real time(because I think the infection numbers will be getting better then)(so obviously, this is a lagging indicator for the rapidly changing conditions)
Consumer Confidence Survey®
https://www.conference-board.org/data/consumerconfidence.cfm?mod=article_inline
metmike:
I will ask you how much lower you think it will go and what you think might happen just because you understand this measure but realize that nobody really has a clue.
I will wild guess this though. I think the worst of the panic and bad news could be behind us with regards to the COVID-19 numbers. The negative effects on the economy news could still keep getting worse, especially since the MSM will be sensationalizing this and dwelling on it. Good news does not sell or boost ratings like bad news does.
Regardless, after the WORST news of this generation.......by a wide margin, I believe that people might be receiving next weeks news of us having passed the inflection point and now the new infection numbers will be tumbling lower with a great sigh of relief and it could be with enough gusto to surprise if they believe that we just won THE key battle against our war with the hidden enemy.
The shut ins are have a massively beneficial effect based on the real time indicator..........measure of fever/sickness BEFORE they become positive test results many days later. This has been dropping in most of the country for 2 weeks and its just a matter of time before we see it in the lagging indicators(deaths-the longest lagging-won't stop dropping for many weeks)
When the lagging indicators start showing it more profoundly next week, the turn in attitudes/psyche should follow.
I will have these links updated early this afternoon.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/49867/
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/49863/
I know they track 5000 households and split the results between current and anticipation with anticipation getting more weight. I assume it's the same 5k households. Next month? Not sure but it will largely depend on the perception of the virus, I suspect.