Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Signals from the Latest Economic Indicator Trends | Episode 123 | 04-18-2024

Transcript

Signals from the Latest Economic Indicator Trends | Episode 123 | 04-18-2024 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: We thought we were making some progress here on the leading economic indicator index, but unfortunately, in March we saw that reverse course.
• 0:07
  Megan Horneman: I'm Megan Horniman, the Chief Investment Officer for Verdence Capital Advisors.
• 0:11
  Megan Horneman: We're coming to you today it's Thursday, april 18th with our regular segment of Markets with Megan, and we got a couple of pieces of economic data today that are worth mentioning.
• 0:20
  Megan Horneman: So we'll do a part one with the leading economic indicators and then we'll come back.
• 0:24
  Megan Horneman: Stay tuned there for part two, where we talk about existing home sales.
• 0:28
  Megan Horneman: So let's break down the leading economic indicator index.
• 0:31
  Megan Horneman: I really like looking at this index because it compiles all of these different areas of the economy.
• 0:38
  Megan Horneman: It looks at the labor market, it looks at manufacturing, it looks at orders, it looks at the stock market, the credit market, and it looks at interest rate spreads and then also housing, and what we saw was we did get an increase in this index last month.
• 0:52
  Megan Horneman: That was the first time we've seen this in more than two years.
• 0:56
  Megan Horneman: In fact, it actually reversed course.
• 0:58
  Megan Horneman: It was negative again in March, so it's been negative in 24 out of the past 25 months.
• 1:03
  Megan Horneman: Unfortunately we've talked about this before this has never happened where we've had a duration of this long, with the leading indicators negative, and we haven't had a recession.
• 1:14
  Megan Horneman: Let's break into some of the different areas that we recognized in this report.
• 1:19
  Megan Horneman: First of all, the weakness was led by you had building permits.
• 1:24
  Megan Horneman: That was the worst we've seen in six months.
• 1:26
  Megan Horneman: The interest rate spread, which is the yield curve.
• 1:29
  Megan Horneman: That was also negative.
• 1:31
  Megan Horneman: Consumer expectations have rolled over.
• 1:34
  Megan Horneman: They've been negative.
• 1:35
  Megan Horneman: We also saw negative in jobless claims, as well as the ISM new orders Some of the weaker ones the non-defense capital goods orders.
• 1:45
  Megan Horneman: They go straight into GDP.
• 1:47
  Megan Horneman: That was only up 0.01%.
• 1:50
  Megan Horneman: The biggest positives in this report, though, were the stock market and the leading credit index.
• 1:57
  Megan Horneman: Both of those are keeping this somewhat muted at a negative pace, but these are the things that we think can turn over very quickly, so we're watching this closely Again.
• 2:08
  Megan Horneman: This doesn't really bode well for the economy, but it's been negative for a very long time and consumers have held in to support this economy.
• 2:16
  Megan Horneman: That's all we have for today's.
• 2:18
  Megan Horneman: Please tune in for part two when we discuss the existing home sales.
• 2:22
  Megan Horneman: Thank you, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to podcast at verdence dot com.
• 2:27
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.