Mike Bjork's (mbjork) Blog

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  The Markit PMI released both their Manufacturing and Services data for the month of January.  Anything above 50 is considered expansion.  Manufaturing dropped from 57.7 in December to 55.0 in January; and Services dropped from 57.6 in December to 50.9 in Januar...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  The Leading Economic Indicator Index rose 0.8% in December, after it's November's number was revised from 1.1% lower to 0.7%.  Next week will provide plenty of data, such as Housing data, GDP and Consumer Inflation (with the Fed's favorite gauge for inflation -...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  The Philly Fed Index rose from 15.4 in December to 23.2 in January. This index gauges the business/manufacturing in the Philadelphia region.  This is good news based on the contraction in the NY region that was released earlier this week.  Jobless Claims spiked...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  The MBA Mortgage Loan Activity Report released their data (which comes out every Wednesday) and indicated that Home Buyers jumped this past week, as Mortgage Rates continue to rise.  Seems like rising Mortgage Rates are incentivizing Home Buyers to get off the ...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  The Empire State Index, which measures manufacturing around the NY region, posted a -0.7 for January, which is the first time in awhile that we've seen any contraction in manufacturing in the NY region since the beginning of the lockdowns during the Pandemic (M...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  Retail Sales for December stunk!  it dropped by 1.9%; and when you exclude Auto, then it dropped further, Down 2.3%.  Also, Capacity Utilization dropped from 76.8% in November to 76.5% in December, along with Industrial Production dropping 0.1% in December.  Ev...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  Jobless Claims rose to 230k last week, as we will most likely see a spike this month due to the holiday seasonal workers being let go.  Meanwhile, we also received inflation data on the Wholesale sector, which doesn't always get a lot of respect, as their costs...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  Today is a big day for the economic calendar, which is providing us with consumer inflation data by CPI for the month of December.  The CPI reported that it rose 0.5% and it's YoY rose from 6.8% in November to 7.0% in December.  This is the highest reading sinc...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  Investors were watching the renomination of Jerome Powell to Fed Chair today.  The Fed Chair indicated that the Fed has not yet discussed how they will reduce the Balance sheet; and indicated that they may not discuss for another 3-4 meetings.  But there are a ...

http://MikesDailyMarketReport.com:  We only have Wholesale Inventories, which doesn't carry much weight with the Markets released today from the Economic Calendar.  It was reported that Wholesale Inventories rose 1.4% in November.  However, this week will provide us with some inflation data (CPI ...