- Stock Rover - https://www.stockrover.com -

Rover’s Weekly Market Brief — 3/22/2019

Indices

DJIA: 25,502.30 (-1.34%)

NASDAQ: 7,643.00 (-0.59%)

S&P 500: 2,801.00 (-0.76%)

Commodities

Gold: 1,313.10 (+0.78%)

Copper: 290.60 (+0.00%)

Crude Oil: 58.94 (+0.72%)

New Video on Advanced Charting

We have added a new video that covers the advanced features of the Stock Rover Charting facility. The video can be viewed here [1].

Economy

Slowing growth and economic activity along with declining inflation contributed to the Federal Reserve leaving the prime rate unchanged at 2.25 – 2.50% in their March meeting [2] along with beginning to reduce its balance sheet reduction and May and stopping the reduction altogether in September. Projections for economic activity [3] were also downgraded from December’s levels, with the median estimate of GDP dropping from 2.3% to 2.1% for 2019, and from 2.0% to 1.9% for 2020, but remaining at 1.8% for 2021 and 1.9% for the longer run. Unemployment rate projections ticked up +0.2% to 3.7% for 2019 and 3.8% for 2020, while longer run projections dropped from 4.4% to 4.3%. The prime rate estimates were modified to reflect the Fed’s more patient current policy, with the target rate for 2019 dropping from December’s 2.9% estimate to 2.4%, and the estimate for 2020 and 2021 dropping from 3.1% to 2.6%, while the longer run rate estimate remained steady at 2.8%.

Existing home sales [4] rose a record +11.8% in February, recovering from January’s downwardly revised -1.4% slump to help boost year over year sales from -8.7% in January to -1.8%. Home prices rose for the 84th consecutive month, with February increasing +3.6% for single family homes to a median price of $251,400 and condominium/co-op prices rising +3.1% to a median price of $233,300. Sales grew the most strongly in the West, up +16.0% to an annual rate of 1.16 million sales (-7.9% Y/Y), followed by the South at +14.9% for 2.39 million sales (-0.4% Y/Y), and then the Midwest at +9.5% for 1.27 million sales (0.0% Y/Y), with sales in the Northeast unchanged from January at 690,000 (+1.5% Y/Y).

IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers’ Composite Flash Index dropped -1.5 to a 6-month low of 54.3 with services down -1.2 to a 2-month low of 64.8, manufacturing down 0.5 to a 21 month low of 52.4, and manufacturing output down -1.1 to a 33 month low of 51.6. The slowing business growth reflected cautious spending patterns and a dip in optimism for business outlook to the weakest since June 2016. Subdued demand resulted in new work rising at the slowest pace since April 2017 and a slowing of staff hiring. Comments from a number of manufacturers responding to the survey indicated a cyclical slowdown in demand that resulted in the slowest rate of new order increase in nearly two years.

Upcoming Economic Reports:

Wednesday March 27 – International Trade

Thursday March 28 – Final GDP, Q4 2018

Earnings Calendar:

 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Red Hat
(RHT)
[5]
McCormick
& Co
(MKC)
[6]
Paychex
(PAYX)
[7]
Science
Applications Intl
(SAIC)
[8]
CarMax
(KMX)
[9]
Winnebago
Industries
(WGO)
[10]
FactSet Research
Systems
(FDS)
[11]
Lululemon
Athletica
(LULU)
[12]
RH
(RH)
[13]
Arcimoto
(FUV)
[14]