FYI: This week saw a mix of manufacturing and labor data with results spanning from huge beats to horrible misses. While most manufacturing data saw sizeable misses, on the bright side, labor data had strong beats in the second half of the week. Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity started the week on a sour note. As the last US release of 2018, it came in well below expectations and even further below the previous period at a meager –5.1. Markets took Tuesday off to celebrate New Years Day, and on Wednesday we came back to a better, but still weaker, manufacturing reading with the Markit Manufacturing purchase managers index seeing a drop of only 0.1. Thursday saw the ISM release of their manufacturing data which saw broad—but predictable given recent regional Fed indices—declines that far exceeded most forecasts. Despite weak manufacturing sector data in the first half of the week, some positive labor data helped to end the week on a high note. On Thursday ADP released their employment change data for December with a huge surprise to the upside showing 271K additional jobs created. The BLS’s Nonfarm Payrolls report (which typically moves in tandem with the ADP numbers) saw a nice surprise to the upside on Friday as well further reinforcing evidence of a strong labor market.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/next-weeks-economic-indicators-1-4-19/
