Sethi Associates

US Pending Home Sales (M/M) Mar: 1.9% (est 4.4%; prev R -11.5%) Pending Home Sales NSA (Y/Y) Mar: 25.3% (est 27.5%; prev R -3.8%) March pending home sales (which are contract signings not actual transactions) bounced back after a plunge in February although less than expectations.  Prices and low inventories remain the predominant issues.  All regions but the Midwest saw m/m gains.  Here is some commentary from the report. "The increase in pending sales transactions for the month of March is indicative of high housing demand," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. "With mortgage rates still very close to record lows and a solid job recovery underway, demand will likely remain high." "Low inventory has been a consistent problem, but more inventory will show up as new home construction intensifies in the coming months, as well as from a steady wind-down of the mortgage forbearance program," Yun continued. "Although these moves won't immediat...

  Mostly just collecting data that we already know, but: Q1 GDP (initial estimate) :  +6.4%  annualized vs. +6.5% estimate and +4.3% in Q4. PCE price index:  +3.5%  vs. +2.5% consensus and +1.5% in previous quarter. Core PCE prices  +2.3%  vs. +2.4% consensus and +1.3% in previous quarter. The GDP increase reflects increased consumer spending, nonresidential fixed investment, federal government spending, residential fixed investment, and state and local government spending. That was partly offset by declines in private inventory investment and exports. GDP just misses estimates but still a very strong 6.4% annualized Q/Q growth with personal consumption up a massive 10.7% fueled by stimulus payments with durable goods up 41%(!) and non-durables 14%.  Services was up a more mild 4.6%. After two months of 20%+ growth, domestic investment fell by 5%, but I am struggling to understand where that headline number comes from as outside of nonresidential ...

 As we approach the open... - 4/29/21 Busy morning so didn't get a chance to proofread so apologize for any typos. As we approach the open, US equity futures are at the top of their overnight range which was basically a steady drift upwards led by the NDX on the back of strong results from Apple and Facebook after the close last night.  NDX indicated up 1.21%, RUT 0.86% and SPX 0.75%.   In earnings news Apple (AAPL 137.31, +3.73): +2.8% after beating top and bottom-lines estimates with strong beats across all product categories, guiding Q3 revenue to be up "strong double digits," raising its dividend by 7%, and authorizing an increase of $90 billion to the existing share repurchase program. Facebook (FB 239.50, +22.40): +7.3% after beating top and bottom-line estimates. Facebook also said it expects revenue growth rates to "significantly decelerate" in the second half of this year due to strong comparisons from the prior year. Caterpillar (CAT 235.00, +2.70): +1...

Daily Summary – April 28, 2021 - Another Day of Drift US equity indices vacillated around unchanged levels for a second day with small caps again finishing a bit green and SPX again a bit red, but NDX and Naz were down a little more so than yesterday at -0.42 and -0.28%, which was a bit surprising given the very solid earnings delivered from Alphabet and Microsoft.  While the former was up, the latter, as well as a host of other tech companies from AMD to TXN were down leading that sector to the bottom of the board as we'll see in a moment.  Style box similar to yesterday with no real solid pattern other than value doing a little better in general than anywhere else. After the bell we got Apple earnings.  Surprise, they crushed expectations.  And remember that $50B buyback from Alphabet?  Apple says "hold my beer" adding $90B to its buyback.  That's some real cash. So the stock is ripping right?  I guess if up 2% is ripping.  Oh, yeah, and FB beat...