DC Lite #527

1. Chicago PMI. The Chicago Business Barometer jumped to 54 in January, breaking a streak of 25 consecutive months of contraction. It was the strongest reading since Nov’23.

2. Warsh vs. inflation. “If Trump wants someone easy on inflation, he got the wrong guy in Kevin Warsh.”

3. SPX vs. new Fed chair. “Markets tend to test new Fed chairs. The average correction in the first six months is 15%. When the chair faces their first crisis, investors don’t wait and see how they handle it. Fed independence is a potential crisis for Warsh but it could be anything.”

4. Insider activity. “Almost 1000 executives at roughly 6,000 US-listed firms have unloaded shares this month, compared with 207 who added, resulting in the highest sell-to-buy ratio in five years”.

5. Software earnings revisions. “Many software companies have been revising their expectations for future revenue and earnings down. In fact, according to Trivariate, we haven’t seen this much downward revision to the median software company’s sales estimate relative to the broader tech sector since the 2009 financial crisis.”

ICYMI