Blog Post

Major stock indices ended the holiday shortened week mixed.  OPEC+ made a surprise announcement that members will voluntarily cut production by 1.1MM barrels per day beginning in April and 1.6MM barrels beginning in July through the end of the year.  Recent comments from OPEC delegates indicated no cuts, especially given China’s reopening from Covid zero.  This gave the markets pause as OPEC+ may be anticipating a global recession.  This was reinforced by weaker, but still strong, employment numbers.

Treasury bond yields fell with the 30-year bond yield at 3.549% and the 10-Year note at 3.202%.  Freddie Mac reported that 30-year mortgage rates fell to 6.28%.  Crude oil rose to $80.47 a barrel and natural gas fell to $2.022 per MMBTUs.  The U.S. dollar index fell to 101.91 and gold rose to $2021.70 an ounce.

  • S&P Global released it’s purchasing managers indices for March.  Keep in mind that anything over 50 represents expansion and anything under 50 represents contraction.
    • U.S. manufacturing PMI rose from 47.3 to 49.2.
    • U.S. services PMI rose from 50.6 to 52.6.
    • Canada manufacturing PMI fell from 52.4 to 48.6.
    • Mexico manufacturing PMI was unchanged at 51.0.
    • Japan manufacturing PMI rose from 47.7 to 49.2.
    • Japan services PMI rose from 54.0 to 55.0.
    • China manufacturing PMI fell from 51.6 to 50.0.
    • China services PMI rose from 55.0 to 57.8.
    • Eurozone manufacturing PMI fell from 48.5 to 47.3.
    • Eurozone service PMI rose from 52.0 to 53.7.
  • U.S. auto sales rose 7.5% in the first quarter to a 15 year high, as sales rebounded on increased supply and pent up demand from the pandemic.
  • The Commerce Department reported:
    • Factory orders fell 0.7% in February following a 2.1% drop in January.
  • The U.S. trade deficit rose as both imports and exports fell:
  • The Labor Department reported:
    • Job openings fell 6.0% in February to 9.9MM, still much higher than the 5.9MM unemployed. 
    • Unemployment seasonal adjustments were revised to remove outlier data from the pandemic.
    • Seasonally adjusted first-time claims for unemployment were 228,000 up from a revised 210,000 in the prior week..
      • The 4-week moving average of claims, designed to smooth out volatility, was 237,750 down from a revised 242,000 in the prior week.
      • For the full unemployment report go here:  https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf .
  • The EIA weekly oil report is here: http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf .  Also, the EIA reported in the prior week:
    • Field production of crude oil was unchanged at 12.2MM BPD.
    • Natural gas storage fell 23BN cubic feet and is above the 5-year average at this time of year.
  • Baker Hughes reported the number of active oil rigs fell 2 to 590.  The number of active natural gas rigs fell 2 to 158.

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Thank you,

Loren C. Rex, CFP®, MA                                                                     Erik A Smith, AIF®

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Registered Representative of and securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a Broker/Dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisor Representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. Cambridge and Generations Financial Planning & Wealth Management are separate companies and are not affiliated.

These are the opinions of Loren Rex and Erik Smith and are not necessarily those of Cambridge, are for informational purposes only, and should not be construed or acted upon as individualized investment advice. The Indices mentioned are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly.

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