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Rover’s Weekly Market Brief — 7/20/2018

Indices

DJIA: 25,058.10 (+0.15%)

NASDAQ: 7,819.68 (-0.08%)

S&P 500: 2,801.87 (+0.03%)

Commodities

Gold: 1,231.00 (-0.82%)

Copper: 269.55 (-2.88%)

Crude Oil: 70.31 (-0.99%)

Economy

Retail sales [6] were up +0.5% (+6.6% Y/Y) in June, which came on top of an upward revision of May’s sales from +0.8% to +1.3%. Automobile sales were up +0.9% (+4.6% Y/Y), and excluding automobiles brought overall sales down to +0.4% (+7.1% Y/Y). Increases in gasoline prices helped boost gasoline sales by +1.0% (+21.6% Y/Y), and excluding gasoline sales as well as automobiles brought overall sales down to a +0.3% (+5.6% Y/Y) gain. For other retailers sales were up in health and personal care (+2.2% M/M, +6.7% Y/Y), restaurants (+1.5% M/M, +8.0% Y/Y), non-store (e.g. online) retailers (+1.3% M/M, +10.2% Y/Y), and building supplies (+0.8% M/M, +6.2% Y/Y). Sales fell in June for sporting goods and hobby stores [7] (-3.2% M/M, -4.7% Y/Y), clothing (-2.5% M/M, + 4.0% Y/Y), general merchandise (-0.8% M/M, +2.3% Y/Y), and electronics (-0.4$ M/M, +2.1% Y/Y).

Industrial production [8] rebounded to a +0.6% (+3.8% Y/Y) gain in June after a downwardly revised -0.5% drop in May. May’s drop was largely due to a disruption at a parts supplier which caused a sharp drop in motor vehicle production (-8.6%), and June’s motor vehicle production rebounded sharply (+7.8%). Utilities output was down -1.5% (+5.0% Y/Y), while mining was up +1.2% (+12.9% Y/Y) for its fifth consecutive month of gains, and manufacturing rose +0.8% (+1.9% Y/Y), reversing it’s downwardly revised -1.0% drop in the previous month. Durable goods manufacturing was up +3.2% Y/Y, with gains for computers (+6.4% Y/Y), motor vehicles (+3.7% Y/Y), and machinery (+2.7% Y/Y), and drops for furniture (-1.0% Y/Y) and transportation equipment (-0.8% Y/Y). Overall capacity utilization was up +0.3% to 78.0%, with manufacturing capacity up +0.5% to 75.5%, mining capacity up +0.6% to 92.7%, and utility capacity down -0.3% to 78.9%.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of housing starts [9] in June was 1.173 million, down -12.3% from a downwardly revised 1.337 million SAAR in May. On a yearly basis, housing starts were down in the Northeast (-40.0%), the Midwest (-23.5%), and the West (-3.3%), but a +13.4% increase in the South, which includes the largest amount of housing construction, limited nationwide housing starts to a -4.2% Y/Y drop. New permits were down -3.0% for the year, with a +4.6% gain in single family permits ameliorating the effect of a -2.7% drop for 2-4 unit buildings and a -16.2% drop for 5 or more unit buildings. The sharpest drop in new permit requests was in the Midwest (-19.8% Y/Y), with a smaller drop in the West (-7.1% Y/Y), and gains in the Northeast (+6.7% Y/Y) and the South (+3.3% Y/Y). More units were completed in the West (+13.5% Y/Y) and the South (+13.0% Y/Y), but fewer were finished in the Northeast (-26.9%) and the Midwest (-24.2%).

Upcoming Economic Reports:

Thursday July 26 – Durable Goods Orders

Friday July 27 – First estimate 2018 Q2 GDP

Earnings Calendar:

 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Alphabet
(GOOGL)
[10]
Verizon
(VZ)
[11]
Facebook
(FB)
[12]
Amazon.com
(AMZN)
[13]
Chevron
(CVX)
[14]
HDFC Bank
(HDB)
[15]
AT&T
(T)
[16]
Visa
(V)
[17]
Royal
Dutch Shell
(RDS.A)
[18]
Merck & Co
(MRK)
[19]