Morning Report: Confidence in the economy improved 11/16/16

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change
S&P Futures 2171.8 -8.0
Eurostoxx Index 337.7 -2.0
Oil (WTI) 45.4 -0.4
US dollar index 90.6 0.2
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.27%
Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA 103
Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA 104
30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage 4

Stocks are weaker this morning as commodities rally. Bonds and MBS are down.

Mortgage Applications fell 9% last week as purchases fell 6% and refis fell 11%. I’m actually surprised it wasn’t worse, as the 10 year bond yield went from 1.78% to 2.14%.

Inflation at the wholesale level remains low as the producer price index was flat for October. Ex-food and energy, they were down .2%. Ex food, energy and services the index was down .1% and is up 1.6% for the year. Certainly nothing to concern the Fed, however the Fed Funds futures are factoring in a 94% chance of a rate hike next month. At the beginning of the month, the odds were 68%.

Donald Trump’s transition team is already having power struggles, as Chris Christie loyalists were sent packing after VP Mike Pence replaced him as head of the transition team. Given that Trump was an outsider, his transition is going to be a lot more rocky than we are used to.

It looks like Trump is considering famed value investor Wilbur Ross and ex-Goldman guy Steve Mnuchin to Treasury and Commerce. Apparently an announcement is imminent.

Industrial Production was flat in October, while manufacturing production was up 0.2%. Capacity Utilization slipped to 75.3%. The strong dollar is going to be a headwind for the manufacturing sector, although its weight in the US economy is a lot smaller than it used to be.

Confidence in the economy surged after the election according to Gallup. The improvement was largely partisan as Republicans became more bullish on the economy.

Fast money poured into ETF last week on the election news. Large caps were bought while small caps were sold. Pharma and biotech saw big inflows, as well as tech, which would benefit the most from an overseas repatriation tax holiday.

Home prices rose 6.6% last month according to the FNC indices.

Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |

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73 Responses

  2. Kevin S. Willis, on November 16, 2016 at 9:20 am said:

    Also, this:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/screw_your_feelings_trump_voters.html

    The racist act of voting instantly converted Trump supporters into racists, and now they’re as real as can be. They might or might not want to deal with that fact, but what’s left of the decent America must.

    Like

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    • jnc4p, on November 16, 2016 at 10:34 am said:

      Oh the irony and lack of self awareness:

      “If feelings are sovereign and unassailable, so are the intentions that come out of them—one’s agency is rooted in feelings, realized in intentions.”

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  3. Brent Nyitray, on November 16, 2016 at 10:15 am said:

    The left is still firmly stuck in the anger phase..

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  4. jnc4p, on November 16, 2016 at 10:26 am said:

    Day 8 of the meltdown.

    Like

    Reply
  5. Brent Nyitray, on November 16, 2016 at 10:40 am said:

    Change.org has the right idea: Force Trump to eat shrooms until he realises we are all one

    https://www.change.org/p/federal-drug-administration-force-trump-to-eat-shrooms-until-he-realises-we-are-all-one

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  6. jnc4p, on November 16, 2016 at 11:56 am said:

    Wow. Hadn’t see this.

    “Like ‘the day Osama was killed’: How the military is reacting to Trump’s victory
    By Thomas Gibbons-Neff
    November 9”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/11/09/like-the-day-osama-was-killed-how-the-military-is-reacting-to-trumps-victory

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  7. ScottC, on November 16, 2016 at 12:11 pm said:

    Oh my.

    http://www.lennyletter.com/politics/a613/hillary-clinton-is-more-than-a-president/

    …I love Hillary Clinton. I am in awe of her. I am set free by her. She will be the finest world leader our galaxy has ever seen.

    …Millions of Clinton’s supporters — we were thanked by Clinton as the “secret, private Facebook sites” — expressed it among themselves, all the time, in raptures or happy tears with each new display of our heroine’s ferocious intelligence, depth, and courage…

    …If only one reporter — they knew about us — could have published a headline like “Clinton Inspires Historic Levels of Adoration From Her Supporters” about the people who have had their lives transformed by the power of her brilliant campaign, unrivaled effectiveness, and extraordinary career….

    …But the feminist hero never got to be a legend first. And yet she is one, easily surpassing Ben Franklin, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs…

    …Hillary Clinton’s name belongs on ships, and airports, and tattoos. She deserves straight-up hagiographies and a sold-out Broadway show called RODHAM…

    …Maybe she is more than a president. Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself. The presidency is too small for her. She belongs to a much more elite class of Americans, the more-than-presidents. Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander Fucking Hamilton…

    …

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  8. jnc4p, on November 16, 2016 at 3:50 pm said:

    Worth a read:

    “Why Donald Trump Needs to Take a Salary

    There’s a reason the Framers wanted the president to get paid—and if their logic was good enough for George Washington, it should be good enough for Trump.

    By Rob Goodman
    November 15, 2016 ”

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/donald-trump-salary-george-washington-214458

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • markinaustin, on November 16, 2016 at 5:01 pm said:

      Take the salary but donate it to the Highway Trust Fund as a token of support for DJT’s infrastructure initiative.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      • markinaustin, on November 16, 2016 at 5:07 pm said:

        Take the salary but purchase and repatriate that much of the foreign held portion of the national debt.

        Explain that D’israeli [I think] got the rich and the aristocratic to bail GB out of its Debt crisis c1840.

        Ask for voluntary repatriation payments to furriners holding US Treasury obligations. Explain that when all the National Debt is held by Americans no foreign country [e.g.,China or Saudi Arabia] will have leverage against us.

        Buy back Treasuries from China first, then Russia, then Arabs. If you cannot get Canadians and Aussies to sell no biggie.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  9. jnc4p, on November 16, 2016 at 5:09 pm said:

    Good Milo piece:

    “What Trump Means
    by Milo
    16 Nov 2016”

    http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/11/16/what-trump-means/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Michigoose, on November 17, 2016 at 8:19 am said:

      You have very eclectic reading habits. But that is one guy whose writing I will never click on.

      Or on whose writing I will never click.

      Like

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      • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 8:46 am said:

        Bah. If I can make it through a Taibbi column….

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      • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:04 am said:

        Milo writes from the right the way a John Oliver monologue operates from the left. Sort of like Ann Coulter is the right’s version of Michael Moore if Michael Moore put more choir-preaching jokes in.

        If Milo were a liberal he’d be writing for Vanity Fair or, if less jokey, for Slate. He’s the conservative version of “I’m going to call a Nazi a Nazi, who cares how it sounds!”

        Or, he’s a good example of how much of the legitimately liberal media and punditocracy sounds to independents, libertarians and the right, thus why some might consider reading him. And ask themselves, while they do, is this convincing me?

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        • jnc4p, on November 17, 2016 at 9:15 am said:

          “Milo writes from the right the way a John Oliver monologue operates from the left. Sort of like Ann Coulter is the right’s version of Michael Moore if Michael Moore put more choir-preaching jokes in.”

          Bingo. That’s exactly it.

          Like

      • jnc4p, on November 17, 2016 at 9:13 am said:

        Consider it gathering intelligence on the enemy if that helps Michi.

        What I would give to see Milo and Lena Dunham debate in public.

        Liked by 2 people

        Reply
        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:20 am said:

          Lena would meltdown in 5 minutes. Milo would be cool as a cucumber. Headline would be “White Supremacist Makes Caring Woman Cry Because She Loves Too Much”.

          Like

        • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 9:40 am said:

          jnc:

          What I would give to see Milo and Lena Dunham debate in public.

          I’d rather see Milo debating Maddow.

          edit: Or Jon Stewart!

          Like

    • Brent Nyitray, on November 17, 2016 at 8:44 am said:

      I think that Milo is first and foremost a performance artist. Art has been dominated by flabby leftism for so long that there is nothing edgy left to be done. The new edgy poking the establishment left in the eye.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
    • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 7:30 am said:

      Later I want to look deeper into the whole Steve Bannon is a Klan member thing. Haven’t had time to do my research but I don’t feel that HuffPo, Vox and Slate are giving me the whole story. Anybody know? Genuinely anti-Semitic white nationalist? Or just a modern practitioner of white identity politics?

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      • Let the mutherfuker burn!, on November 17, 2016 at 7:58 am said:

        They consider Brietbart to be a White Nationalist / Anti-Semitic entity. Plus, he had a nasty divorce. Finally, Klan members endorsed Trump. Bannon embraces the Alt Right designation, the media is conflating Bannon’s/Milo’s/Coulter’s version of Alt Right from that of NeoNazi’s over at StormFront. I know there is a difference but the media is pretending there isn’t.

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        • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 10:12 am said:

          jnc:

          And why he doesn’t consider himself part of it:

          Outstanding speech.

          Liked by 1 person

        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:37 am said:

          Gotta say, reading those, I totally stand by my assessment of Milo being a right-wing version of a John Oliver monologue.

          And he helps illustrate the point of how worthless “alt right” is as a label, primarily thanks to the mainstream press. But also thanks to the Stormfronts out there.

          Like

        • jnc4p, on November 17, 2016 at 10:17 am said:

          Whatever else, he does know how to make a coherent argument. I typically don’t watch his performances, but rather read the transcripts.

          This of course gets to the heart of the matter:

          “I’d prefer we had no identity politics at all and that we judged people, as someone once said, not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. But if you’re going to have identity politics, you have to have them for everybody.

          You might not like the result.”

          Liked by 1 person

        • Let the mutherfuker burn!, on November 17, 2016 at 10:20 am said:

          Dig. It’s just that many people dismiss him because he is gay.

          Sad really.

          Like

        • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 10:21 am said:

          Mich, you really are not doing yourself a favor by refusing to even read what Milo has to say.

          Like

        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 10:32 am said:

          @jnc4p: “This of course gets to the heart of the matter:”

          It does, but the left will insist indefinitely that white people aren’t allowed to do identity politics, only everybody else. Because of white privilege and slavery and Eurocentrism and institutional racism.

          They will have a million reasons that white people can’t do identity politics, why it isn’t allowed, but the fact is nobody else asked permission to start playing identity politics and neither will caucasian men and women.

          The effort will, of course, to turn modern white identity politics into “openly racist” (as they did, with such a resounding success, with Trump this year). Best of luck. They will have to wait until white people are a clear minority . . . and even then, identity politics is about knowing when to align with other groups. There’s no reason 30 years from now the Republicans can’t dominate the white/Hispanic coalition, or even the hite/Hispanic/Muslim coalition, as impossible as that would be for Democrats and liberals to believe at the moment. You don’t have to get all of them, you just have to get a lot of them.

          Democrats are correct that, ultimately, Demographics are destiny. But they are wrong that, in the future, that will always work in their favor because they are entitled to it.

          Like

        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 10:37 am said:

          I get why a liberal would not want to read Milo. It’s like reading Michael Moore or (in terms of tone, only) a little like reading some of those posts at Lenny. It’s not bridge building, and it’s preaching the choir. People don’t respond well to the choir-preaching when they aren’t a member of the church. No matter how many nuggets of useful wisdom are contained within.

          Like

        • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 11:00 am said:

          KW:

          I get why a liberal would not want to read Milo. It’s like reading Michael Moore

          I read Moore and watch his movies, or at least I did when he was influential on the left. I want to know what the left is thinking/saying, and for a time he was a big driver of what the left was supposed to think and say.

          People don’t respond well to the choir-preaching…

          I have not yet encountered a way to challenge leftist assumptions to which the left responds well. Have you?

          Like

      • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 8:42 am said:

        KW:

        Anybody know?

        Yesterday jnc gave me a good link on Bannon. Note the complete absence of any mention of race at all.

        https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/

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        • Brent Nyitray, on November 17, 2016 at 8:56 am said:

          when the only tool in your toolbox, is a hammer, everything looks like a nail..

          Like

        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:10 am said:

          Interesting, I hear it once, coupled with a few quotes, I can think: “Sounds like this dude is, at minimum, a step too far”. Hear it constantly, and with almost no documentation, I begin to suspect it’s not quite kosher.

          Thanks for the links!

          Like

        • ScottC, on November 17, 2016 at 9:18 am said:

          KW:

          Hear it constantly, and with almost no documentation, I begin to suspect it’s not quite kosher.

          Agreed. Not sure if you saw it, but I wrote a comment on exactly this yesterday. I followed links from article to article trying to find the evidence of what is presented as unquestionable fact, and from what I can see it is all just the result of assumptions and innuendo. Classic media smear tactics.

          Like

        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:31 am said:

          He definitely used the term “a bunch of dykes” at one point, to describe liberal women who don’t like conservative women. Which is not a great sound bite for a political operative.

          In a 2011 radio interview, Bannon said conservative women complicate the progressive narrative. “That’s why there are some unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement,” he said. “That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that’s why they hate these women.

          Reverse the sentiment and replace the offending term with “racists” or “self-hating misogynist women” and it would be fine, though.

          Don’t see much else. Something about not wanting his kids to go to a school with a lot of jewish kids, as reported by his ex-wife, which is at least semi-tainted testimony. Acrimonious divorces don’t tend to lead to estranged spouses remembering all the facts objectively, or any exculpatory exchanges.

          Only think that would give me pause is Ben Shapiro doesn’t think much of him, and I like Shapiro a lot.

          In his messy breakup with Breitbart News, Ben Shapiro wrote that under Bannon, “Breitbart has become the alt-right go-to website, with Yiannopoulos pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers.”

          But Shapiro, from what I’ve read and heard, doesn’t want the right to compete in the cesspool of identity politics. Which is noble, but difficult to do and succeed when everybody else is playing the identity politics game.

          The rest of this article is entirely guilt-by-association. White nationalists and David Duke are excited by the Bannon appointment, because, presumably, they know he’s secretly totally a racial realist and White Nationalist.

          http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/11/what-steve-bannon-thinks-of-women-and-minority-groups.html

          Like

      • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:16 am said:

        “Tipped to Weiner’s proclivity for sexting with female admirers, Bannon says, the site paid trackers to follow his Twitter account 24 hours a day and eventually intercepted a crotch shot Weiner inadvertently made public. The ensuing scandal culminated in the surreal scene, carried live on television, of Andrew Breitbart hijacking Weiner’s press conference and fielding questions from astonished reporters.”

        LOL! 🙂

        Like

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        • Let the mutherfuker burn!, on November 17, 2016 at 9:39 am said:

          That was, for me, the single greatest moment of media punking in human history. the world is a much lesser place without Andrew Breitbart. If you take that idiot’s Dunham’s sop to HRC and replace her name with Andrew Breitbart, it might, might, cover my level of devotion to him.

          Liked by 1 person

        • jnc4p, on November 17, 2016 at 10:22 am said:

          It would have been interesting if he had lived to see Trump’s election.

          Like

      • jnc4p, on November 17, 2016 at 9:21 am said:

        Presumably this is all about racism:

        ““I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats,” says Bannon, by way of explaining his politics. “I wasn’t political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter f—ed things up. I became a huge Reagan admirer. Still am. But what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had f—ed up as badly as Carter. The whole country was a disaster.””

        Like

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        • Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:23 am said:

          Liking Reagan is automatically proof of racism, right there.

          Then, he probably didn’t like Bush because he had black people in his cabinet. You gotta connect the dots.

          Like

  11. Kevin S. Willis, on November 17, 2016 at 9:15 am said:

    Bannon’s Empire!

    Only one black guy and only two women. Racist and misogynist! Doesn’t he know our strength is our diversity?

    I think it’s confirmed. White nationalist Klan member.

    Like

    Reply

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