Tuesday, December 30, 2014
(This is Mark Vickery covering for Sheraz Mian, who is off this week.)
This morning, among a rather scant market-centric news week — at least until Friday, when Zacks Strategist John Blank indicates we’ll be seeing “PMI readings galore” — the Case-Shiller home price data report has come out, which points to relative strength within the largest 10 and 20 housing markets in the U.S. Results were lower than the 4.7% year-over-year increase expected.
Case-Shiller's 10-city read of 4.4% and 20-city 4.5% number were both down 0.1% from September's reads. This also marks 11 straight months of lower housing price gains. Miami and San Francisco showed the highest housing price gains this time around, but clearly housing data has yet to represent a notable chunk of overall GDP. Will housing numbers gain traction regarding economic growth in 2015?
A half hour or so after the market opens this morning, the U.S. consumer confidence index will be released. Expectations are for a 94 reading; much will naturally reflect holiday retail sales, as well as the continuing effect of lower oil/gasoline prices. Of course, understanding that the Santa Claus rally in the markets this month may have baked some of this into the cake. A surprisingly disappointing number may send market sentiment lower.
The most recent U.S. rig count has fallen by 37 this morning, further pushing the narrative of cheap oil affecting the oil & gas industry. Lessening domestic production should provide at least a very near-term safety net for oil prices, but again — this is not exactly going to be a frenetically busy week for any industry, oil & gas included. The trading volume just isn’t going to be there to hamper oil industry stocks until at least next week.
For the rest of the week, look for an early read on U.S. jobless claims tomorrow. We expect a 287K number, which is still on the market-positive side. If the Chicago PMI number and domestic pending home sales also provided expected upside numbers, these could be further positive indicators for markets in 2015. Again, feel free to check John Blank’s “The Week Ahead for Global Markets.”
Unless we see developments overseas in the next few days that may affect markets there as well as in the U.S. — and I don’t consider yesterday’s tragedy with the Singapore-bound AirAsia flight crash as providing much market impact, horrible a situation as it is — we can expect more placid trading waters for today, tomorrow and Friday.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
Note: In order to get an email alert each time this author publishes a new article, click on the ‘Follow Author’ link at the bottom of the top-right box of links.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
Get all Zacks Research Reports and be alerted to fast-breaking buy and sell opportunities every trading day.
Be the first to comment