Rover's Weekly Market Brief — 4/6/2018

Indices

DJIA: 23,932.80 (-0.71%)

NASDAQ: 6,915.00 (-2.10%)

S&P 500: 2,604.00 (-1.40%)

Commodities

Gold: 1,337.00 (+1.07%)

Copper: 303.95 (+0.46%)

Crude Oil: 61.95 (-4.60%)

Economy

February’s trade deficit for goods and services rose +1.6% to $57.6 billion, the largest deficit since 2008, with a $4.4 billion increase in imports overtaking a $3.5 billion increase in exports. Goods imports increased +$3.5 billion, with imports up for crude oil imports (+$0.7 billion), food (+$0.8 billion), and civilian aircraft (+$0.5 billion), while goods exports were up +$3.1 billion, including a +$0.7 billion increase for vehicles, a +0.6 billion increase in pharmaceutical preparations, and a +$0.6 billion increase in nonmonetary gold. A +$0.5 billion increase in service exports was easily surpassed by a +$1.1 billion increase in service imports, which was due almost entirely to a $1.0 billion intellectual property payment for broadcast rights to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Broken down by trading partner, the largest trade deficits were with China (-$34.7 billion), the European Union (-$15.3 billion), Germany (-$6.7 billion), Mexico (-$6.6 billion), and Japan (-$6.0 billion), and the largest surpluses were with South and Central America (+$3.4 billion) and Hong Kong (+$3.1 billion).

There were 103,000 jobs created in March, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1% for the sixth consecutive month, while the workforce participation rate ticked downward from 63% to 62.9%. The number of jobs created in February was revised upward to 326,000 (+13,000), but January’s jobs numbers were revised downward to 176,000 (-63,000), lowering the number of jobs created over the previous three months by -50,000, and bringing the average number of jobs created in Q1 2018 to 202,000 jobs/month vs. 221,000 jobs/month for Q4 2017. Employment rose for professional services (+33,000), manufacturing (+22,000), healthcare (+22,000), and mining (+9,000), and dropped slightly for construction (-15,000), and the retail trade (-4,000). Average hourly earnings rose +$0.08/month, and are up $0.71/year (+2.7%). The more comprehensive U-6 unemployment measure, which counts marginally attached and part time workers, dropped -0.2% to 8.0%, and is down -0.9% from 8.9% in March 2017.


Construction spending rose +0.1% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of $1,273.1 billion after a +$9.4 billion upward revision of January’s SAAR to $1,272.2 billion. Spending for the first two months of 2018 was $176.3 billion, +4.4% higher than the same period in 2017. Private construction spending rose +0.7%, but the overall rate was held back by a -2.1% drop in public construction spending, which dropped in all areas other than water supply construction. On a yearly basis, private spending has increased notably for transportation (+31.3%), lodging (+12.5%), new single family homes (+9.5%), and commercial facilities (+7.6%), with drops for religious construction (-11.9%), power facilities (-8.5%) and manufacturing (-5.6%). Yearly public construction spending increased for commercial facilities (+26.2%), offices (+19.5%), public safety (+13.3%), and transportation (+9.2%), but dropped for amusement and recreation (-9.7%), power (-6.1%), and highways and streets (-5.1%).

Upcoming Economic Reports:

Tuesday April 10 – Producer Price Index – Final Demand (PPI-FD)

Wednesday April 11 – Consumer Price Index

Earnings Calendar:

 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Pigeon
(PGENY)
Seiko Epson
(SEKEY)
Delta Air Lines
(DAL)
BlackRock
(BLK)
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM)
Argan
(AGX)
MSC Industrial
Direct Co
(MSM)
Fastenal
(FAST)
Shaw
Communications
(SJR)
Citigroup
(C)






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