Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week's Events:

Positives,

1)The Conference Board's Q1 2024 CEO Confidence survey saw its headline print rise to 53, finally back above 50 from 46 in Q4.

2)Continuing claims, delayed by a week in its reporting, fell by 23k to 1.871mm after rising by 66k in the prior week.

3)The CPI revisions that many got all hyped up about, yawn.

4)The January ISM services index rose to 53.4 from 50.5 and above the estimate of 52. Of note, only three industries saw growth in employment of 18 industries asked, down from 7 in December and 10 in November. Breadth was slightly improved m/o/m but still pretty mixed as just 10 of the 18 industries surveyed saw growth and 7 experienced a contraction vs 8 and 8 last month. Here was the bottom line from ISM, "The majority of respondents indicate that business is steady. They are optimistic about the economy due to the potential impact of interest rate cuts; however, they are cautious due to inflation, associated cost pressures and ongoing geopolitical conflicts.”

5)Still good wage growth even with the modest moderation, the January 3 month average Atlanta Fed's Wage Growth Tracker rose 5% y/o/y vs 5.2% in December. The 20 yr pre Covid pace was 3.4% on average. For 'job changers,' wages rose 5.6%, little changed with 5.7% in December. For 'job stayers,' their wages went up 4.7% y/o/y vs 4.9% in the month before.

6)The Shanghai to Rotterdam price for a 40 foot container fell for a 2nd week by $235 to $4,426. That's off the recent peak of $4,984 at the end of January but still up from $1,667 at the end of December.