[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The S&P reached a new record high for the 64th time this year – that’s almost 18% of the entire year. The index had gains each day this week and is up 24.6% YTD.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
This commentary has been updated to include this morning’s release of Nonfarm Employment. October’s 531K increase in total nonfarm payrolls had revisions that resulted in 235K more jobs than previously reported. The Investing.com consensus was for 450K jobs gained and the unemployment rate to fall to 4.7%.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators we update on a monthly basis.
The Crestmont Research P/E Ratio
The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings as the divisor
The Q Ratio, which is the total price of the market divided by its replacement cost
The relationship of the S&P Composite price to a regression trendline

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Our monthly market valuation updates have long had the same conclusion: US stock indexes are significantly overvalued, which suggests cautious expectations on investment returns.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
This morning’s late release of the publicly available data from ECRI puts the WLI at 156.1, unchanged from the previous week’s figure. The WLIg is at 4.8, up from last week and the WLI YoY is at 10.98%, also up from last week.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Note: This update includes October close data.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
This morning’s employment report for October showed a 531K increase in total nonfarm payrolls, which was above the Investing.com forecast of 450K jobs added.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The Census Bureau has posted the Advance Report on Durable Goods New Orders. This series dates from 1992 and is not adjusted for either population growth or inflation. Let’s now review Durable Goods data with two adjustments.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The moving average for the per-capita Light Vehicle Sales series peaked in 2005. Sixteen years later, it is now down 17.1% from that peak.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Was the March 2009 low the end of a secular bear market and the beginning of a secular bull?

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The accompanying chart is a way to visualize real GDP change since 2007 and uses stacked column chart to segment the four major components of GDP with a dashed line overlay to show the sum of the four, which is real GDP itself. Here is the latest overview from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The Advance Estimate for Q3 GDP came in at 2.0% (2.02% to two decimals), down from 6.7% (6.73% to two decimals) in Q2 2021. With a per-capita adjustment, the headline number is lower at 1.65% to two decimal points.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
This morning’s seasonally adjusted 269K new claims, down 14K from the previous week’s revised figure, was below the Investing.com forecast of 275K.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services, also known as the FT-900, is published monthly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis with data going back to 199 and details U.S. exports and imports of goods and services. Today’s headline number of -80.93B was worse than the -80.50B Investing.com forecast.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Here’s the latest on the largest cryptocurrencies by market share.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Here is the latest update of a popular market valuation method using the most recent Standard & Poor’s "as reported" earnings and earnings estimates and the index monthly average of daily closes for the past month.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) has now released the October Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI). The headline Composite Index is at percent 66.7, up 4.8 from 61.9 last month and a record high. Today’s number came in above the Investing.com forecast of 62.0 percent.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The October US Services Purchasing Managers’ Index conducted by Markit came in at 58.7 percent, up 3.8 from the final September estimate of 54.9.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
This morning we have the ADP October estimate of 571K nonfarm private employment jobs gained, an increase over the ADP revised September figure of 523K.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Quick take: At the end of October the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index price was 178% above its long-term trend, down from 179% above the previous month.
About the only certainty in the stock market is that, over the long haul, over performance turns into underperformance and vice versa. Is there a pattern to this movement? Let’s apply some simple regression analysis to the question.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
This morning’s late release of the publicly available data from ECRI puts the WLI at 156.5, up 1.7 from the previous week’s figure. The WLIg is at 4.7, up from last week and the WLI YoY is at 10.94%, also up from last week.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The October Final came in at 71.7, down 1.1 (1.5%) from the September Final. Investing.com had forecast 71.4. Since its beginning in 1978, consumer sentiment is 16.7 percent below the average reading (arithmetic mean) and 15.7 percent below the geometric mean.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The latest Chicago Purchasing Manager’s Index, or the Chicago Business Barometer, rose to 68.4 in October from 64.7 in September, which is still in expansion territory. Values above 50.0 indicate expanding manufacturing activity.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) in September rose 0.48% and is up 6.3% year-over-year. However, when adjusted for inflation using the BEA’s PCE Price Index, Real Personal Income (excluding Transfer Receipts) MoM was up 0.16%. The real number is up 1.8% year-over-year.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The team at HSH.com, features a periodic update entitled "The Salary You Must Earn to Buy a Home in the 50 Largest Metro Areas". The key question is: "How much salary do you need to earn in order to afford the principal and interest payments on a median-priced home in your metro area?"

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
With the release of this morning’s report on September’s Personal Incomes and Outlays, we can now take a closer look at "Real" Disposable Personal Income Per Capita. At two decimal places, the nominal -1.34% month-over-month change in disposable income is cut to -1.65% when we adjust for inflation. This is a decrease from last month’s 0.11% nominal and -0.23% real changes. The year-over-year metrics are 1.98% nominal and -2.29% real.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The median household is the statistical center of the Middle Class. In terms of income, this class has not gained much in recent decades. Let’s take a closer look at a troubling aspect of the Census Bureau’s latest annual household income data, issued in September. In this update, we’ll focus on the growing gap between the median (middle) and mean (average) household incomes across the complete time frame of the Census Bureau’s annual reporting, which began in 1967, to the release of the annual data for 2020.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The BEA’s Personal Income and Outlays report for September was published this morning by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The latest Headline PCE price index was up 0.32% month-over-month (MoM) and is up 4.38% year-over-year (YoY). Core PCE (YoY) is now at 3.64%, above the Fed’s 2% target rate.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
Earlier this week we posted an update on the median household income for the 50 states and DC based on the Current Population Survey, a joint undertaking of the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, which includes annual data from 1984 to 2020. Let’s now look at the actual purchasing power of those median incomes. For this adjustment, we’re using the "C2ER Cost of Living Index" produced by C2ER, the Council for Community and Economic Research.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]
The median US income in 2020 was $67,521, up from $22,415 in 1984 — a 201% rise over the 36-year time frame. However, if we adjust for inflation chained in 2020 dollars, the 1984 median is $51,742, and the increase drops to 27%.