The S&P 500 was a bit of a rollercoaster this week with three days of losses and two days of gains. The index was up 0.19% from Thursday but is down 0.88% from last week. The index is up 2.19% YTD and is 4.11% below its record close.
Pop Quiz! Without recourse to your text, your notes or a Google search, what line item is the largest asset in Uncle Sam's financial accounts?
With the latest Z.1 data and the GDP Q1 Second Estimate, we now have an updated look at the popular "Buffett Indicator" -- the ratio of corporate equities to GDP. The current reading is 132.8%, up from 136.0% the previous quarter.
This morning's release of the publicly available data from ECRI puts its Weekly Leading Index (WLI) at 150.1, up 0.9 from the previous week. Year-over-year the four-week moving average of the indicator is now at 3.71%, up from 3.36% last week. The WLI Growth indicator is now at 3.1, also up from the previous week.
The Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) monthly data on volume sales is several weeks old when it released. The latest numbers, through mid-April, are now available. However, despite the lag, this report offers an interesting perspective on fascinating aspects of the US economy. Gasoline prices and increases in fuel efficiency are important factors, but there are also some significant demographic and cultural dynamics in this data series.
The latest Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for May increased to 109.5 from a revised 109.3 in April. The Coincident Economic Index (CEI) came in at 103.7, up from the previous month.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released its U.S. House Price Index (HPI) for April. U.S. house prices were up 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted nominal basis from the previous month. Year-over-year the index is up 6.4% (nonseasonally adjusted). Seasonally adjusted, the index is up 4.37% year-over-year.
The latest Manufacturing Index came in at 19.9, down from last month's 34.4. The 3-month moving average came in at, down from 26.6 last month. Since this is a diffusion index, negative readings indicate contraction, positive ones indicate expansion. The Six-Month Outlook came in at 34.8, a decrease from the previous month's 38.7. Today's 19.9 headline number came in below the 28.9 forecast at Investing.com.
This morning's seasonally adjusted 218K new claims, down 3K from the previous week's revised figure, was better the Investing.com forecast of 220K.
Let's take a long-term view of household net worth from the latest Z.1 release. A quick glance at the complete data series shows a distinct bubble in net worth that peaked in Q4 2007 with a trough in Q1 2009, the same quarter the stock market bottomed. The latest Fed balance sheet shows a total net worth at an all-time high — 83.5% above the 2009 trough. The nominal Q1 net worth is up 1.0% from the previous quarter and up 7.0% year-over-year.
