DOW + 58 = 16323
SPX + 8 = 1857
NAS + 4 = 4155
10 YR YLD + .04 = 2.71%
OILÂ + .30 = 101.58
GOLD + 3.20 = 1295.90
SILV + .13 = 19.92
Consumer spending increased 0.3% in February, but the January reading on spending was revised lower to 0.2%. Disposable income, or the money left over after taxes, rose 0.3% after adjusting for inflation, the most since September. It climbed 2.1% from February 2013. Wages and salaries increased 0.2% after a 0.3% gain. This tells us a few things; consumers are spending what they earn, basically hand to mouth; also incomes and spending are not enough to lift the economy and we will be seeing first quarter GDP estimates revised lower.
Today’s spending report showed purchases of durable goods, including automobiles, increased 0.1% after adjusting for inflation following a 0.4% drop in January. Purchases of non-durable goods, which include gasoline, gained 0.3%. Household outlays on services climbed 0.2% after adjusting for inflation. Today’s data also showed the core price measure, which excludes fuel and food, rose 1.1% from a year ago, the same as in January.
Total prices, which are the ones tracked by Federal Reserve policy makers, were up 0.9% from February 2013, the smallest year-to-year gain since October. That remains well below the central bank’s 2% target.
The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index final reading for March came in at a four-month low of 80, down from 81.6 in February.
Next week’s big economic report will be the Friday jobs report. Unlike the last three monthly employment reports, the March data should be fairly clean of weather effects. And so the forecasts are calling for 200,000 net new jobs, compared to the 175,000 jobs added in February. A reading of 200k or better would confirm the idea that economic activity in the first quarter was slowed by the weather, and stable fundamentals will support strong growth.
US military officials estimate Russia’s reinforcement of troops near Ukraine has brought the total forces there to as many as 40,000. The new US estimates of as many as 35,000 to around 40,000 troops are higher than the more than 30,000 total deployments reported earlier this week by US and European sources familiar with official reporting. Ukraine’s estimates of Russian forces near the border are far higher than Western figures; the Ukrainians estimate there are 100,000 Russian troops amassed on the border. The military buildup is adding to concerns that Russia may again be readying an incursion into Ukraine following its annexation of Crimea.
