Economists were looking for moderate slowdown for growth in February but the actual number delivered a huge downside miss. Hiring at US companies virtually ground to a halt last month, rising just 25,000 – a dramatic fall from January’s blowout 308,000, the Labor Deparment reports.
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It appears that the US stock market’s rally this year has trashed the bear-market calls made at the end of 2018 and repeated in late-January, based on a version of the Hidden Markov model (HMM). But a fresh run of The Capital Spectator’s application of HMM for profiling the big-picture trend is doubling down on the analysis of the S&P 500 Index. Animal spirits have revived in 2019 after a sharp slide late last year, but the model continues to insist that a bearish bias endures. Taking the analysis at face value, if you’re so inclined, suggests that this year’s bounce is a bear-market rally.
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ECB revives some measures of stimulus as global economy slows: NY Times
German factory orders fell in Jan, another sign of economic slowdown: Bloomberg
China’s exports plunged 21% in Feb: CNBC
Fed Governor Brainard: macro outlook supports ‘softer’ rate path: Bloomberg
US consumer debt rose in Jan, suggesting support for spending: Bloomberg
Job cuts in US jumped to 3-1/2 year high in February: CG&C
US jobless claims fell in early March, signaling strong labor market: MW

Searching for battered and bruised assets through an ETF lens continues to highlight commodities. There are select cases of deep value represented by other asset classes, but at the extreme this quest still favors funds that target raw materials – echoing the results from The Capital Spectator’s previous review of ETFs that have fallen out of favor.
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China’s embattled Huawei sues US gov’t for banning firm’s technology: CNN
US sees rising Chinese military activity in the South China Sea: Bloomberg
US senators: Saudi crown prince has gone ‘full gangster’: Reuters
Japan’s Q4 GDP growth revised up: MNI
US service sector growth suggests Fed’s rate pause may end soon: Bloomberg
US trade deficit in goods reached a record level in 2018: WSJ
US private-sector job growth was steady in Feb at 2%-plus annual pace: ADP

Preliminary nowcasts for US economic growth in the first quarter suggest that the slowdown in 2018’s second half will continue, based on a set of estimates compiled by The Capital Spectator. The degree of the deceleration remains open for debate, of course, in part because it’s still early in the current quarter. In addition, survey data for February reflect a pickup in growth in the services sector, which may be an early clue that the macro trend is firming up.
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N. Korea is reportedly rebuilding key missile-test facilities: NY Times
Record number of migrant families arrested at US-Mexico border: WSJ
Trump is pushing negotiators for trade deal with China: Bloomberg
Global economic growth edged up in February: IHS Markit
OECD trims 2019 global economic growth forecast… again: Reuters
New home sales in US rebounded to 7-month high in December: CNBC
US ISM Non-Mfg Index posted strong growth in Feb: Logistics Mgt
US Services PMI: growth picked up to 7-month high in Feb: IHS Markit

The projected risk premium for the Global Market Index (GMI) ticked up in February to an annualized 4.6%, slightly above January’s forecast. Today’s revised estimate for GMI (an unmanaged market-value-weighted portfolio that holds all the major asset classes except cash) reflects the ex ante premium over the projected “risk-free” rate for the long run.
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Trump announces end of US preferential trade treatment for India: Reuters
China lowers 2019 growth target to 6%-6.5%: WSJ
House Democrats are conducting sweeping investigation of Trump world: CNN
Crisis is growing in Canadian Prime Minister’s Trudeau’s government: BBC
Eurozone PMI: sluggish economic growth edged up in February: IHS Markit
Sales of US light trucks and autos fell to 18-month low in January: Argus
10 years ago this week the market hit bottom during the Great Recession: CNBC
US construction spending 1-year growth rate fell to 7-year low in Dec:

In the spring of 2017, Yahoo pulled a fast one on the crowd by suddenly changing the technical coding rules for accessing its financial data, leaving countless R users high and dry, including yours truly. Numerous R files that had been meticulously written, revised and maintained over months and years were suddenly broken. Not fun.
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