Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events:

Positives,

1)It’s Friday.

2)Initial claims fell back to 221k from 242k last week which we know was a bigger than expected rise. The estimate was 233k. Smoothing this out put the 4 week average at 224k from the same 224k last week.

3)In the Challenger data, hiring plans rose in February by almost 35k and that is the most for a February since 2022. Entertainment/leisure drove most of the hiring, adding 28k.

4)The February ISM services index rose to 53.5 from 52.8 and 1 pt better than expected, vs 54 in December and is about right in line with the 6 month average of 53.9. Industry breadth was similar to that seen in January where 14 sectors saw growth and 3 saw a contraction and one saw no change. From the ISM, “Anxiety continues however over the potential impact of tariffs. Some respondents indicated that federal spending cuts are having negative impacts on their business forecasts.”

5)The drop in mortgage rates to an average of 6.73% for the week helped to juice mortgage applications, particularly in refi's. Refi's spiked by 37% w/o/w while purchases rebounded by 9.1% after four weeks of declines.

6)From Kroger: “spending from less budget conscious households was more resilient, and our most favorable household trends were driven by our core mainstream customers."

7)From Cracker Barrel: With guidance, "our outlook reflects the softer traffic trends that we and the broader industry have experienced quarter-to-date. We believe this softness is largely being driven by poor weather and increased macroeconomic uncertainty. That said, we are encouraged by the improvement we've seen over the past two weeks compared to the rest of Q3."

8)From Ross Stores: "fourth quarter sales and earnings results were at the high end of our expectations. Sales were driven by our customers' positive responses to the improved assortments of quality branded bargains", among other things.