This is as good as it gets… at least by the standard of jobless claims. New filings for unemployment benefits dropped 13,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 253,000—the lowest since the Watergate scandal was consuming the Nixon administration. Taken at face value, today’s numbers provide cover for dismissing yesterday’s surprise decline in retail spending in March as noise.
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The case for expecting a small-cap equity premium looks shaky. Can we rescue the strategy by focusing on small-cap value stocks? A cautious “yes” has merit, or so it appears after crunching the numbers on the relevant Russell indexes.
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● US Retail sales fall in March to end weak Q1 | MarketWatch
● US business inventories fall slightly in Mar, sales weaken further | Reuters
● Fed Beige Book: Strong Job Market Delivers Higher Wages | WSJ
● GDPNow growth forecast for Q1 ticks up to still-weak +0.3% | Atlanta Fed
● ‘GDPNow’ Got You Down? Meet the NY Fed’s New ‘Nowcast’ | Barron’s
● Just Released: Introducing the FRBNY Nowcast | NY Fed
● Eurozone March Inflation Revised Up To Zero | RTT