Good Thursday AM,
Bonds selling off a bit.
Stocks maybe a little too. CPI day which did come in a touch heavier on the headline number than expected. More on that in a moment. Bonds did take a run over the last few days and try to touch a first level of Fibonacci, and then we bounced. I don’t know that this rally is over. I think it possibly could gain some steam; but we need to shake off todays selling.
As for CPI, the news was mixed.
The headline number, which most analysts don’t pay that much attention to has food and energy and it’s very volatile. Markets were looking for 0.3. we got. 0.4, which is hotter than expected, but it’s less than it was last month. And again, just think about what’s been happening with gas, that how much that would influence this number, the core number takes those things out and much easier to measure and trust. So we were looking for 0.3, we got 0.3, which is what we had last month. I’m going to call this neutral-ish to good. The jobless claims came in better than expected. Tomorrow we only have the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment of importance. A little bit of a pull back today. I am being patient to see how the rest of the day shapes up.
A few notes of interest…
When it comes to the size of the federal government’s annual deficit, appearances can be deceiving. The gap between spending and revenue for fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, was $1.7 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office projects. That would be roughly $300 billion more than the shortfall in fiscal year 2022. But the gap was actually much larger. That is because of the odd way President Biden’s attempt to broadly cancel student debt shows up in budget figures. WSJ’s Andrew Duehren and Alana Pipe look at White House accounting, why the deficit is growing again and how it’s all inflaming the longstanding debate over spending and revenues.
Federal Reserve officials were split over whether they would need to raise interest rates again this year when they decided last month to hold their benchmark policy rate steady. Minutes from the Fed’s Sept. 19-20 policy meeting, released Wednesday, reflect deliberations before a run-up in long-term Treasury yields began to accelerate. If sustained, the rise in yields could moot the need for Fed officials to raise rates again this year, Nick Timiraos reports.
Are you going to Disney?
$480: the new cost of a five-day ticket to Disneyland, a nearly 16% increase. Disney is raising prices at its theme parks as it looks to get more out of its parks divisions amid softness in its TV business and challenges in its shift to streaming.
Please remain safe and healthy, make today great!
