Sethi Associates

 Memorial Day Update - 5/31/21 Thought I would give an update on some things I came across this weekend, and summarize where markets that were open today finished.  US equity futures traded down today (they had a shortened session, closing at 1 pm) led by small caps with the RUT down almost half percent, NDX and SPX around a quarter percent.  I'd caution reading too much into that as to trading for the upcoming week, though, as holiday volume is very thin (only 103k contracts traded on the SPX e-mini futures today (/ES) compared with 10x that on Friday). Asia In data, final read of China manufacturing PMI for May pulled back a touch.  This had led to articles on China's recovery "peaking" (including the one below from China state media which is interesting). China Manufacturing PMI May 51.0 (est 51.1; prev 51.1) Also, I indicated last week that I thought it seemed like China was starting to push back on the yuan's rise, and that activity increased today with a hik...

 Daily Summary – May 28, 2021 - A Tame Finish Markets finished a relatively tame week with an appropriate finish with SPX, NDX, Naz, and RUT all finishing within a third of a percent of unchanged with all ending green other than RUT which was down two tenths.  Gains were a little better earlier in the day but a chunk of selling just before the close knocked them down a bit.  Interestingly, according to Helene Meisler of Top Charts, Naz has not had consecutive up/down days for two weeks.   For the week, all finished with gains, while for the month, SPX and RUT registered very mild gains while Naz and NDX were down less than 2%.  After taking a few days off, large growth back in the lead today.  Some of that might have been some month-end rebalancing out of May winners into losers though.  Next week will be interesting to see which reasserts leadership (or heaven forbid they both go up or down together). And it was a great week for travel stocks. Re...

  US Personal Income Apr: -13.1% (est -14.2%; prevR 20.9%; prev 21.1%) US Personal Spending Apr: 0.5% (est 0.5%; prevR 4.7%; prev 4.2%) US Real Personal Spending Apr: -0.1% (est 0.2%; prevR 4.1%; prev 3.6%) US PCE Deflator (M/M) Apr: 0.6% (est 0.6%; prevR 0.6%; prev 0.5%) US PCE Deflator (Y/Y) Apr: 3.6% (est 3.5%; prevR 2.4%; prev 2.3%) US PCE Core Deflator (M/M) Apr: 0.7% (est 0.6%; prev 0.4%) US PCE Core Deflator (Y/Y) Apr: 3.1% (est 2.9%; prevR 1.9%; prev 1.8%) As anticipated, April personal income comes in with a big decline off of March's stimulus infused massive increase, but remains far above pre-pandemic levels. Spending held in with a nominal increase but inflation adjusted it fell a touch m/m. I'll go through each piece independently, but overall a positive report. Tables at the end. Personal Income With government transfer payments falling 41% some giveback was inevitable.  But looking past that, compensation was up again this month by 0.9% (with wages and salari...