US pulling remaining staff from its embassy in Venezuela: AP
White House budget proposal is released and is likely DOA: The Hill
US small-business owners less optimistic about business conditions: Gallup
UK’s prime minister secures new EU concessions ahead of Brexit vote: WSJ
UK economic growth rebounded in Jan after weak Dec: Reuters
Turkey slips into recession for first time in a decade: Bloomberg
US business inventories rose in Dec as sales dropped the most in 3 years: Reuters
US retail sales rebounded in Jan; Dec’s big loss is revised down even further: CNBC
US core CPI expected to more or less hold steady at 2.1% (s.a.) annual pace in Feb:

A broad measure of US investment-grade bonds rallied to a new high last week as stocks around the world slumped, based on a set of exchange-traded products that track the major asset classes. The return of risk-off sentiment was fueled in part by Friday’s surprisingly weak report on US payrolls growth in February.
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Boeing’s 737 Max jet may face global grounding after Ehtiopian crash: Bloomberg
Trump to ask Congress for $8.6 bill for border wall in budget proposal: Reuters
Iran’s president makes first visit to Iraq: ABC
German industrial output fell in Jan amid plunge in auto production: Reuters
UK government says Brexit talks deadlocked: Bloomberg
Fed Chairman Powell: the law says Trump can’t fire me: CNBC
US residential housing construction rose more than forecast in Jan: CNBC
Weak US jobs data for Feb suggests economic growth will slow in 2019: Bloomberg
Fed economic forecasts have overestimated US growth for a decade: NY Times

Economists were looking for moderate slowdown for growth in February but the actual number delivered a huge downside miss. Hiring at US companies virtually ground to a halt last month, rising just 25,000 – a dramatic fall from January’s blowout 308,000, the Labor Deparment reports.
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It appears that the US stock market’s rally this year has trashed the bear-market calls made at the end of 2018 and repeated in late-January, based on a version of the Hidden Markov model (HMM). But a fresh run of The Capital Spectator’s application of HMM for profiling the big-picture trend is doubling down on the analysis of the S&P 500 Index. Animal spirits have revived in 2019 after a sharp slide late last year, but the model continues to insist that a bearish bias endures. Taking the analysis at face value, if you’re so inclined, suggests that this year’s bounce is a bear-market rally.
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ECB revives some measures of stimulus as global economy slows: NY Times
German factory orders fell in Jan, another sign of economic slowdown: Bloomberg
China’s exports plunged 21% in Feb: CNBC
Fed Governor Brainard: macro outlook supports ‘softer’ rate path: Bloomberg
US consumer debt rose in Jan, suggesting support for spending: Bloomberg
Job cuts in US jumped to 3-1/2 year high in February: CG&C
US jobless claims fell in early March, signaling strong labor market: MW

Searching for battered and bruised assets through an ETF lens continues to highlight commodities. There are select cases of deep value represented by other asset classes, but at the extreme this quest still favors funds that target raw materials – echoing the results from The Capital Spectator’s previous review of ETFs that have fallen out of favor.
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China’s embattled Huawei sues US gov’t for banning firm’s technology: CNN
US sees rising Chinese military activity in the South China Sea: Bloomberg
US senators: Saudi crown prince has gone ‘full gangster’: Reuters
Japan’s Q4 GDP growth revised up: MNI
US service sector growth suggests Fed’s rate pause may end soon: Bloomberg
US trade deficit in goods reached a record level in 2018: WSJ
US private-sector job growth was steady in Feb at 2%-plus annual pace: ADP

Preliminary nowcasts for US economic growth in the first quarter suggest that the slowdown in 2018’s second half will continue, based on a set of estimates compiled by The Capital Spectator. The degree of the deceleration remains open for debate, of course, in part because it’s still early in the current quarter. In addition, survey data for February reflect a pickup in growth in the services sector, which may be an early clue that the macro trend is firming up.
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