David White

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

For those waiting for the petroleum stocks numbers to turn the market. The API numbers yesterday indicate crude stocks were down 1.2M barrels. Gasoline stocks were also down very minorly. The petroleum stocks info at 10:30am ET will likely not turn the market (at least not on its own).

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

When you sell more cars at steeply discounted prices because myriad dealerships are being closed, it is not a "real and sustainable" retail sales gain. This is especially true when you consider that those same dealerships will no longer exist in the future. They will no longer contribute to sales. As I understand it, the continuing dealership closings should be with us for a few months. During that time I think it only makes sense to look at the ex-autos numbers (+.3%). This was lower than the +.4% figure expected (a disappointment).

In this month's case, a lot of the rise in sales was due to increased oil prices. The amount of oil consumed did not go up demonstrably in the US. Rather the cost went up 6.6%. To get a better idea of "real" retail sales trends you then need to look at ex-autos and ex-gas (-.2%). This was a bad number. When you also look at the ICSC chain store sales (negative) and the Redbook sales (-1.7% lower than last month), the sales figures are just plain bad. Yet in this rally people keep citing them as good. This makes me think that "da boyz" are orchestrating a crash or severe pull back for the near future. I don't mind if the market goes up, I like it. However, when people are pushing it up on a grossly destorted view of reality (retail sales outperforming expectations), it worries me a lot.