I am sure you all have been waiting for me to weigh in on this morning's data, but quit frankly, I have been busy. Besides my normal workload, I have been toying with the idea of moving the Florida Mortgage Report to a different site using WordPress instead and I am now running this site alongside this domain.
More on that later in another post, but here is the breakdown of today's data, the way I see it...
There was a bunch of news this morning with the highlight being the PCE data and the Chicago PMI. On first glance, the PCE looked good, coming in on par with expectations and keeping to just above the Fed's comfort zone. Dig a little deeper and you will see that it still ticked higher .09%, the most it could tick up and still remain unnoticed due to rounding to the nearest tenth. Interestingly enough the December gain was .24%, also the highest it could be before rounding made it look worse. So, though not bad, inflation still grew slightly at the core levels. Stray away from the core and we have a much worse picture.
Chicago PMI came in lower than expectations as well, providing some relief. It shows further evidence of a slowing economy, but with inflation above the "price stability" range, it also signifies stagflation.
Other news out on the economic front included Personal Spending and Personal Income. The bad news is that Personal Income beat expectations (bad news for bonds that is). Worse news is that Personal Spending beat expectations also. Both add to inflationary pressures, though the PCE is a better gauge. The good news is that spending didn't increase as much as income did, so disposable incomes went up also. Now, take that extra money and invest!
Alright, so what does all of this mean?
Nothing. Tomorrow is a different day and the next big event of the week hits the airwaves as the gates are opened. That's right, the Jobs Jamboree is tomorrow and get ready for a buckin' bronco ride in the markets with my bet's on the bull (stock market) taken down the bonds.
Comments