Daily Chartbook #222
Daily Chartbook #222
Catch up on the day in 30 charts
Welcome back to Daily Chartbook: the day’s best charts & insights, curated.
1. Homes for sale. "The number of homes for sale in the U.S. fell 7.1% year over year to 1.4 million on a seasonally adjusted basis in May. That’s the lowest level in Redfin’s records, which date back to 2012, and the first annual decline since April 2022."
2. Median sale price. "The median U.S. home sale price was $419,103 in May. That’s down just 3.1% from a year earlier."
3. Truck tonnage. "American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 2.4% in May after decreasing 1.7% in April."
4. Freight expenditures vs. SPX. "There has been a directional relationship between the S&P 500 and Freight Expenditures (total dollars spent on freight, which reflects nominal economic activity)…Today, the S&P 500 and Freight Expenditures are diverging by the sharpest amount since late 2019/early 2020 (a period when the Fed was cutting rates)."
5. Travel costs. The Vacation Price Index—measures airfare, hotel (lodging away from home), car rental, gasoline, and food away from home—is up 18% over pre-Covid 2019 levels.
6. WFH openings. "The share of job openings offering work from home is starting to flatten out across countries."
7. Recession probability. "We have lowered our judgmental probability that the US economy will enter a recession in the next 12 months to 25% (from 35% previously)."
8. Financial conditions. "The nominal GS US Financial Conditions Index eased by 20.9bp to 99.56 over the last week, reflecting higher equity prices, lower BBB credit spreads, and a weaker dollar."
9. Hike pricing. "The number of hikes priced by the bond market for 2023H2 increased and the number of cuts priced for 2024Q1 decreased, while the number of cuts priced for 2024H2 increased over the last month."
10. CTAs vs bonds. CTA exposure to bonds is low, in the 20th percentile.
11. CTAs vs. gold/copper. CTAs are favoring gold over copper.
12. CTAs vs oil. Positioning remains low across WTI and Brent crude.
13. Oil open interest. "Managed money as % of open interest on oil. Positioning is very depressed in the asset still."
14. Money market funds. The money market industry "has seen assets grow by some $1 trillion in the past year to a record of almost $5.5 trillion."
15. Investor Intelligence sentiment. "Bulls expanded and bears contracted for the 5th week in a row. Expanding but not yet excessive optimism is consistent with stock market strength."
See:
16. Sentiment indicators. Here are the 9 underlying components of GS' Equity Sentiment Indicator (which is very stretched).
17. Squeeze sentiment. "We calculated an in-house sentiment indicator of Squeeze risks in the market. It indicated that Squeeze sentiment, relative to history, is at 99th percentile. This suggests a pause in the squeeze rally."
18. Sector short interest. "Short interest by sector relative to historical averages as well as recent changes."
19. Risky vs. safe. "Risky vs. safe assets fund flows continue to improve."
20. Investor flows. "Investors reaching for risk assets as large-cap equity ETFs took in >$8 billion last week; broad equity funds also saw inflows (including small- and mid-caps) … within fixed income, investment-grade corporates were most attractive."
21. Sector fund flows. Technology funds continue seeing strong inflows.
22. Fund flows by category. Inflows over the last 4 weeks have been dominated by tech and small caps while energy and health care experienced the biggest outflows.
23. Put-call skew. "Put-call skew shows single stock and index investors are positioned for upside."
24. Global L/S ratio. "On any meaningful lookback period, hedge fund net equity market exposure is close to historical lows."
25. TARA. "Alternatives to equities are attractive."
26. Narrow breadth drawdowns. "52-week market breadth as narrow as any time since the Tech Bubble. GS shows that S&P 500 drawdowns are sharper in the six months following narrowing breadth episodes."
27. EPS estimates. "EPS estimates for 2023 and 2024 have stabilized after sharp declines."
28. Earnings revisions. "After two consecutive weekly gains, earnings revisions index from Citi has fallen back into negative territory (but not as dire as prior declines."
29. Recession trough P/E. “We expect S&P 500 NTM P/E would trough at 15x in the event of a recession.”
30. Bear market rally? And finally, “bear-market rallies generally do not retrace more than half of their preceding declines. The S&P 500 cap-weighted index has retraced 64% of the 2022 decline, exceeding all previous bear-market rallies since the 1920s.”
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