Wednesday Worries: Durable Goods, Investor Confidence and Business Uncertainty

Durable goods are down 0.1%.

That’s down from up 0.8% last month.  Notice we haven’t had big numbers since last Summer and that’s only because they measure against the previous months and last Sping was a complete disaster.   Durable Goods is a volatile measure and, ex-transportation, we are up 0.7%, so it’s not terrible – just disappointing.  

Later we get the Investor Confidence Report, which you would imagine must be high with the S&P around 4,500.  We also have the Business Uncertainty Report coming up and, if Business Optimism is any indicator – it’s not going to be good as we took a very ugly turn in the recent report:

Businesses are, of course, worried about being shut down again due to Covid and people are worried about catching Covid from their maskless customers.  Imagine being a waiter or a teacher or any of those jobs where you are surrounded by people all day long – those people should get combat pay!  

We get the GDP Report tomorrow and that covers last Quarter, before we got a real bite from the Delta virus so things should be good there.  Powell will speak at the now-virtual Jackson Hole conference because Teton County, where the event takes place, hit the highest risk level on the CDC’s scale for the outbreak.  If it were a country, US citizens would be banned from traveling there…  

So the World’s 2nd largest economic conference is cancelled during an ongoing economic crisis and the market would seem to not possibly care less.  Of course, Wyoming are a bunch of ameteurs at catching Covid compared to my home state of Florida, where we have now blasted past last summer’s record infection rate by 50%!  Now THAT is a good reason to cancel a conference but, of course, we cancel nothing!

Russ is playing in Miami this weekend and Gary Allen will be over at the Hard Rock Casino along with dozens of other super-spreader events – and we have a holiday weekend coming up and that should really pack the people in.  Can Florida hit 2,000 cases per day in time for the Holidays?  We can do it!  

Provided courtesy of Phil’s Stock World.