Succinct Summation of the Week's Events

Succinct Summation of the Week’s Events:

Positives,

1)The US economy needed some edge off high short term interest rates. Whether the Fed was going to cut 25 bps or 50 bps though, a lot of rate cuts over the coming year have already been priced in so it really didn’t matter. How it progresses from here does much more.

2)Initial jobless claims fell to 219k from 231k and that was 11k less than expected. The 4 week average fell to 228k from 231k. Continuing claims dropped too by 14k to 1.829 and that is the lowest since June.

3)Core retail sales in August were about as expected when including a very slight upward revision to July. They rose .3% m/o/m after a .4% rise in the month before. They were up by 3.9% y/o/y in nominal terms.

4)The September NY manufacturing index, the 1^st September industrial number to be seen, surprised to the upside with a print of +11.5 vs -4.7 in August and vs the estimate of -4.0. The 6 month business outlook bounced too to 30.6 from 22.9 and that is the best since March 2022.

5)Not the same upside as seen in NY region but the Philly index came in at +1.7 from -7.0 and thus around the flat line. The estimate was zero. The 6 month business outlook was little changed at 15.8 vs 15.4 in August but still 10 pts below the 6 month average.

6)The August Cass Freight index reflected a 1% m/o/m rise in shipments after a 3% increase in July. They remain though down 1.9% y/o/y after a 1.1% fall in July. Cass said with regards to the y/o/y declines "These were the smallest declines in 18 months as goods demand continues to grow slowly, and slowing capacity additions reduce the pressure on for-hire shipments."

7)US industrial production in August rose by .8% m/o/m, well above the estimate of up .2% but partly mitigated by a 3 tenths downward revision to July. Most of the gain was due to a rebound in auto production. Capacity utilization rose to 78% from 77.4%.