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Economy

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index in November came in at 60, falling 6 points to the lowest reading on builder confidence since August 2016. The consensus was looking for 66, with forecasts ranging from 66 to 69 after a 68 reading in October.

[su_table responsive=”yes”]

Released On 11/19/2018 10:00:00 AM For Nov, 2018

Prior Consensus Consensus Range Actual
Housing Market Index 68  68  66  to 69  60 

[/su_table]

“For the past several years, shortages of labor and lots along with rising regulatory costs have led to a slow recovery in single-family construction,” Robert Dietz from NAHB said. “While home price growth accommodated increasing construction costs during this period, rising mortgage interest rates in recent months coupled with the cumulative run-up in pricing has caused housing demand to stall.”

“As a consequence, builders have adopted a more cautious approach to market conditions.

All of the major HMI indices posted declines. By region, the South and West both fell to 65 with the Midwest and Northeast fell to 54 and 52, respectively.

The current sales conditions index declined 7 points to 67, the component gauging expectations in the next 6 months fell 10 points to 65 and buyer traffic posted an 8-point decline to 45.

The 3-month moving averages for regional HMI score for the Northeast rose 2 points to 58, while the Midwest fell 1 point to 57 and the South fell 2 points to 68. The West declined 3 points to 71.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index has gauged builders’ perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The 30-year survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.”

Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index in

Video

Today’s show will talk about global climate change, and the climate change agenda in regards to US policy and the Paris Climate accords. Also some word on voter fraud, and social media.

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*Last on Voter Fraud
*The Complexities of Meteorology
*The History of Weather
*Time in a Bottle
*A Little on Social Media

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Today’s show will talk about global climate

Elections

Sen. Bill Nelson, left, D-Fla. speaks about gun control during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Governor Rick Scott, right, speaks during a news conference to speak about the shooting the day before at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. (Photos: AP)

Sen. Bill Nelson, left, D-Fla. speaks about gun control during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Governor Rick Scott, right, speaks during a news conference to speak about the shooting the day before at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. (Photos: AP)

UPDATE: Bill Nelson has conceded to Senator-elect Rick Scott, the governor of Florida.

The manual recount in the U.S. Senate election in Florida will not end with the result Bill Nelson’s lawyer from Washington D.C. promised. Senator-elect Rick Scott, along with his successor Governor-elect Ron DeSantis, will be officially declared the victors on Tuesday.

The hand recount in Broward County is almost over and the 32,000 undervotes D.C. lawyer Marc E. Elias claimed would overturn the result, actually resulted in a net gain of less than 300 votes for outgoing Senator Nelson.

The defeated Democrat received just 410 additional votes. Further, Governor Scott received an additional 136 votes, resulting in a net gain less than 300 votes.

“According to Bill Nelson’s D.C. lawyer, a hand recount of Broward County votes would miraculously result in thousands of new Bill Nelson voters. Now we know that’s not the case. The numbers are in and the votes have been counted,” Chris Hartline, Spokesman for the Scott campaign said. “Rick Scott was elected to the U.S. Senate by a close but decisive margin.”

“It’s time for Bill Nelson to finally accept reality and allow the state of Florida to move forward.”

The PPD U.S. Senate Election Projection Model was alone in projecting his victory, with help of course from Big Data Poll.

Worth noting, in its debut, it was also alone in predicting the governor’s 2014 victory, when he defeated former governor and Republican-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist.

As far as the model was concerned, this race was over on Election Day and, despite trying to get a judge to allow them to count ballots otherwise deemed illegal, the end of the line for the Left’s legal challenges essentially came late last night.

A motion filed by VoteVets Action Fund, Democratic National Committee, and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, to enjoin Vote-by-Mail ballots (VBMs), was denied by U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker.

The lawsuit wanted all domestic VBMs to be treated the same as overseas military VBMs. That would’ve given them a 10-day deadline.

“These rules have been used for over a decade, and to enjoin the use of them now would create a substantial hardship on the Defendants and perhaps undermine the electoral process,” Judge Walker wrote in his order denying the motion. “Whether an injunction serves the public interest is not clear. The public has an interest in conclusive, orderly elections.”

“On balance, the Plaintiffs have failed to make the necessary showing for the grant of a preliminary injunction.”

That late-night legal defeat followed another the prior night, when Judge Walker denied a second lawsuit over voter intent laws. First, he had upheld standards for divining voter intent in manual recounts as constitutional, and then he denied a request extend the deadlines for the recount.

Secretary of State Ken Detzner ordered the manual recount and set the deadline for Sunday, November 18 at Noon. As of now, Senator-elect Scott leads Senator Nelson with 4,097,689 votes to 4,085,086 votes, a temporary margin of 12,603 votes post-machine recount.

That represented a net gain of 41 votes for Senator-elect Scott, though Broward County missed the deadline and an additional net gain isn’t represented in the result. The machine recount resulted in a loss of 1,385 votes for Senator Nelson, while Senator-elect Scott lost only 606 votes.

The Scott campaign, which accused Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes of missing the deadline intentionally to deprive him of the votes, sent a request to Secretary Detzner to allow the gain of more than 800 votes to stand.

The manual recount in the U.S. Senate

Markets

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Building in the Lower Manhattan Financial District, New York City. (Photo: Tomasz Zajda/AdobeStock/PPD)

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Building in the Lower Manhattan Financial District, New York City. (Photo: Tomasz Zajda/AdobeStock/PPD)

Major stock market averages traded in a 2% range Thursday, rallying off the morning lows to close near their afternoon highs, as Major Market averages settled with their second strongest day of the month.

Market breadth has not had nearly the volatility of market averages, as advancing issues beat decliners Thursday by 3 to 2. This was exactly the mirror image of their 3 to 2 losses on Wednesday when stocks came all the way back from losses of 1.5% to 2% losses midday, to unchanged with an hour to go. In the last hour Wednesday, stocks faded, closing with losses half what they were at midday.

Following the failed recovery from Wednesday, The final stats from Thursday are impressive:

· The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI); +208 or +0.82% at 25,289 traded in a 500 point range and was the lone index with less than a 1% gain.

· The S&P 500 (^SPX), +28.62, or +1.06% at 2730, broke a 5-day losing streak, after holding a key near term support level during the initial selloff.

· The Russell 2000 (^RUT), +21.60, or +1.45% at 1524.12, held the psychological 1500 level after trading lower each of the last 2 days. The Russell was the worst performing market average in October, -11%, as fears of an economic downturn typically have an outsized impact on small cap stocks.

· The NASDAQ Composite (^IXIC), +122, or +1.7% at 7259, traded below 7100 during the morning selloff, threatening the Oct 29 closing low of 7050.29. The NASDAQ should get another big test today as 2 bellwether technology names, Applied Materials, AMAT; and Nvidia, NVDA traded sharply lower following their earnings reports in after hours trading Thursday.

· The DJ Transports, +160, or +1.5% to 10,615, is the only Index to have posted gains each of the last 3 days, and is poised to regain its 200 day moving average of 10,730. We’ve highlighted the Transports before as a potential leading indicator. It’s still front and center.

Friday Morning, we’re getting yet another data point that the heavy selling which marked the lows from late October/early November may have reached an exhaustion point. Stock market averages opened with losses close to -1%, following numerous high profile earnings disappointments and realization that the recently negotiated Brexit deal, has a near zero probability of being approved by the British Parliament. Merely 75 minutes into trading, the steep losses from the first half hour of trading have been erased, with the DJIA and S&P 500 are sporting moderate gains.

Once again….more confusion, and little conviction.

At the near exact Midpoint of Q4, if there is any consensus among investors it’s that they are conflicted, and collectively have a very low level of conviction, regardless if they tilt bullish or bearish on their outlook for where we are in the cycle for the economy and/or corporate earnings.

Additionally, we’ve seen no let up in volatility for either single stock names under the microscope of their Q3 earnings reports, or Market Indices swinging wildly in a blizzard of macro headlines ranging from Trade and tariffs to Brexit talks, and a flurry comments from FED Governors and regional Presidents, just out of their quiet period following their November FOMC meeting and policy statement last week.

With 6 weeks left in 2018, we’re entering what is seasonally a very friendly time on the calendar for stock market performance. While this would typically aid investor confidence into year end, my guess is it’s just adding to the perfect storm of information overload that’s giving investors unease.

If recent data and history are any guide, the recovery off the lows from the Q1 lows, investor and business confidence level near all time highs, the surprising strength in retail sales earlier this week, and the slightly less hawkish comments from FED officials the last couple days, investors may be best served by exercising some patience and riding out this storm of market anxiety.

Major stock market averages traded in a

Economy

American Manufacturing Sector Graphic Concept. (Photo: AdobeStock)

American Manufacturing Sector Graphic Concept. (Photo: AdobeStock)

Industrial production in the U.S. ticked up 0.1% in October as hurricane-impacted utility and mining sectors were outweighed by manufacturing output. In October, manufacturing output rose 0.3% for the fifth straight monthly gain, while the indexes for mining and for utilities fell 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively.

Capacity utilization for the industrial sector was 78.4%, a rate that is 1.4% below its long-run (1972–2017) average.

[su_table responsive=”yes”]

Released On 11/16/2018 9:15:00 AM For Oct, 2018

Prior Prior Revised Consensus Consensus Range Actual
Production – M/M change 0.3 % 0.2 % 0.2 % -0.1 % to 0.4 % 0.1 %
Manufacturing – M/M 0.2 % 0.3 % -0.5 % to 0.4 % 0.3 %
Capacity Utilization Rate – Level 78.1 % 78.5 % 78.2 % 77.9 % to 78.4 % 78.4 %

[/su_table]

Upward revisions to mining pushed the overall index to an annual rate of 4.7% in the third quarter (Q3), significantly higher than the initially reported 3.3% gain. Hurricanes hurt industrial production in both September and October, but appear to account for less than 0.1% each month.

At 109.1% of its 2012 average, total industrial production was 4.1% higher in October than it was a year earlier.

Industrial production in the U.S. ticked up

Politics

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange imposed over a graphic concept for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). (Photo: AdobeStock/PPD)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange imposed over a graphic concept for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). (Photo: AdobeStock/PPD)

The Justice Department (DOJ) indicated in a court filing for an unrelated case that the U.S. charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The court filing from a federal prosecutor in Virginia mentions the anti-secrecy advocate’s name twice.

The unrelated case involves a man accused of coercing a minor for sex.

In the first reference, the prosecutor wrote that the charges and arrest warrant “would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.”

In the second reference, the prosecutor said that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.”

It was and is still not entirely clear why Julian Assange was referenced in the document. Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the Eastern District of Virginia, which had been investigating the WikiLeaks founder, denied he had been charged.

“The court filing was made in error,” he said in a statement. “That was not the intended name for this filing.”

However, The Washington Post, citing sources “familiar with the matter,” reported late Thursday that Mr. Assange had indeed been charged. Neither People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) nor the Associated Press (AP) could not immediately confirm the report.

Mr. Assange, 47, has been effectively imprisoned in the Ecuadorian Embassy for more than 6 years in an effort to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted to sex crimes, or to the United States (U.S.). The former dropped the charges,

The U.S. has sought to prosecute Mr. Assange for publishing a video they described as “depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.”

While liberals and mediates are hoping for a Russia-related indictment, the founder has offered Special Counsel Robert Mueller III evidence Russia did not supply them with 2016-related documents leaks before the election. Mr. Mueller declined the offer.

WikiLeaks released thousands of documents unflattering to Hillary Clinton, her team at the State Department and campaign chairman John Podesta. The document dump exposed journalists at CNN, Politico, The Washington Post and many others as collaborators with the Democratic Party.

The production crew for Jake Tapper, the flagship anchor at CNN, asked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) what questions to pose to Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

Former DNC interim Chair Donna Brazile gave the Clinton campaign debate questions beforehand, and the leaks overall revealed the party establishment working to rig the nomination process in favor of Mrs. Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

Mr. Mueller and his team have announced two rounds (here and here) of indictments against more than two-dozen alleged Russian hackers.

No evidence was given in either indictment and no evidence will ever be presented at trial, as Mr. Mueller knows full-well. Foreign nationals charged by the U.S. will never surrender to authorities.

Meanwhile, in both indictments, the Justice Department stated that there’s no evidence any American had knowledge of the plot to interfere with the election, no outcomes were impacted and, more stunningly, the Russians didn’t intend to help any particular candidate.

They intended to sow domestic political discord and undermine Americans’ confidence in U.S. elections.

The Justice Department (DOJ) indicated in a

US

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Reuters)

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Reuters)

A former IRS employee was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for aggravated identity theft over her role in an identity theft refund scheme. Stephanie Parker, a resident of Georgia, worked for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a Contact Representative in Atlanta.

Ms. Parker, who on at least 5 occasions used taxpayers’ personal information to electronically file fraudulent tax returns in their names, pleaded guilty in August.

These were taxpayers who called into the IRS for assistance from September 2012 to March 2013 and were unfortunate enough to have Ms. Parker handle their inquiries. When the fraudulent tax returns were filed, Ms. Parker directed refunds to bank accounts controlled by her friends.

Subsequently, she had the money withdrawn from at least one of those accounts and deposited a portion of the money into her own bank account. The funds were used for personal expenses.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak for the Northern District of Georgia, made the announcement, and commended special agents at the IRS–Criminal Investigation and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

Trial Attorneys Alexander Effendi and Michael Boteler of the Tax Division, prosecuted this case.

Ms. Parker was also ordered to serve one year of supervised release after the 24 month prison sentence and to pay $5,964 in restitution to the IRS.

A former IRS employee was sentenced to

Economy

Group of friends sitting outdoors with shopping bags; several people holding smartphones and tablets. (Photo: AdobeStock/ OneInchPunch/PPD)

Group of friends sitting outdoors with shopping bags; several people holding smartphones and tablets. (Photo: AdobeStock/ OneInchPunch/PPD)

The advance estimate for October 2018 U.S. retail sales rose 0.8% (±0.5%) for October, beating the forecast in the first beat on fourth-quarter consumer spending. While the report is solid, the headline does mask a negative revision.

Adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, U.S. retail and food services sales came in at $511.5 billion in October, and are up 4.6% (±0.5%) since October 2017.

[su_table responsive=”yes”]

Released On 11/15/2018 8:30:00 AM For Oct, 2018

Prior Prior Revised Consensus Consensus Range Actual
Retail Sales – M/M change 0.1 % -0.1 % 0.5 % 0.3 % to 0.7 % 0.8 %
Retail Sales less autos – M/M change -0.1 % 0.5 % 0.3 % to 0.7 % 0.7 %
Less Autos & Gas – M/M Change 0.0 % 0.4 % 0.2 % to 0.5 % 0.3 %
Control Group – M/M change 0.5 % 0.3 % 0.3 % 0.2 % to 0.4 % 0.3 %

[/su_table]

Total sales for the August 2018 through October 2018 period were up 5.0% (±0.5%) on the year, while he August 2018 to September 2018 percent change was revised from +0.1% (±0.5%)* to -0.1% (±0.2%).

Retail trade sales rose 0.9% (±0.5%) from September 2018 and 4.3% (±0.5%) from last year. Gasoline Stations posted 16.2% (±1.6%) gains from October 2017, while Nonstore Retailers posted 12.1% (±1.4%) increases since last year.

The advance estimate for October 2018 U.S.

Economy

A factory worker at a New York manufacturing plant. (Photo: Reuters)

A factory worker at a New York manufacturing plant. (Photo: Reuters)

The New York Federal Reserve Empire State Manufacturing Survey rose from 21.1 in October to 23.3 in November, easily beating the forecast.

[su_table responsive=”yes”]

Released On 11/15/2018 8:30:00 AM For Nov, 2018

Prior Consensus Consensus Range Actual
General Business Conditions Index – Level 21.1 20.0 18.0  to 22.2 23.3 

[/su_table]

Worth noting, firms reported only a moderate level of optimism about the six-month outlook.

The index for future business conditions rose five points to 33.6. The indexes for future delivery times and future inventories both climbed above zero, suggesting that businesses expect longer delivery times and higher inventories.

The New York Federal Reserve Empire State Manufacturing

Economy

A manufacturing assembly line at the Heinz factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo: Courtesy of Heinz)

A manufacturing assembly line at the Heinz factory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo: Courtesy of Heinz)

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey decreased from 22.2 in October to 12.9 in November, the lowest since August. The report widely missed the consensus forecast, coming in lower than the lowest forecast range.

[su_table responsive=”yes”]

Released On 11/15/2018 8:30:00 AM For Nov, 2018

Prior Consensus Consensus Range Actual
General Business Conditions Index – Level 22.2 20.0 18.3  to 22.0 12.9 

[/su_table]

Nearly 35% of the manufacturers reported increases in overall activity for November, while 22% reported decreases. Optimism in both current conditions post-October and in the 6-month outlooks took a toll, as new orders fell 10 points to 9.1.

The current shipments index fell 3  points to 21.6. However, firms reported an increase in inventories during November and, following two months of negative readings, the inventories index rose 10 points to 9.5.

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey

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