Another week has gone by, some important events happened, so
let’s rundown:
-S&P 500 looked like it was going for red this week
until Friday when we saw a lather large 1.5% move up to close us out flat.
-Volume was a concern as it was one of the lightest trading
days of the year, they do tend to be on the up days.
-Ended the longest losing streak since mid-May. We lost 40
points in that time and regained 22 of them in just one day Friday, no panic
buying but lack of sellers, the “go home long on a Friday” type of thing.
-Earnings did not do much to move us this week, Alcoa had a
slight beat, equity price fizzled out quickly, as I expected last week. Alcoa
experienced a triple bottom closing low of 8.30 so far this year, which is now
a key pivot level for a potential bounce toward 9.00 which is long term
resistance. Would not be trading this, highly volatile, and I don’t see
aluminum prices returning to levels where they were in ’07 when we had growth
and global GDP was industrially expanding.
-Bank earnings (JP Morgan) surprised, the trading loss on
IG9 will likely be less than expected, and they will exit the position slowly
in the coming months. Bruno Iksil (Whale) and CIO office are basically all gone
as of now, Dimon does want to tarnish image any more. Problem is that arm of
their business made roughly 25% of the profits for their quarterly reports, may
be a problem going forward (via ZeroHedge).
-For the week ahead as we delve into the meat of Q2 earnings,
be careful of what you pla on trading, I still am pretty bearish overall with
the global contraction we are facing, along with Europe still not solving its
problems which continues to be a ticking time bomb.
Above the S&P 500
Above Alcoa
Key macro data this week includes:
Monday:
-8:30 AM EST Retail Sales
Retail Sales M/M change Prev -0.2 % Consensus 0.2 % (range
-0.2 % to 0.4 %)
Retail Sales less autos M/M change Prev -0.4 % Consensus 0.1
% (range -0.3 % to 0.2%)
Less Autos & Gas - M/M Change Prev -0.1 % Consensus 0.3
% (range 0.3 % to 0.5 %)
We are looking for a bit of a pickup in monthly retail sales
figures ffrom the month of June, for the beginning of the summer shopping
season, this will give retailers a scale of what they need to do come end of
the summer and back to school into the fall. The average over the past few
years has been about 1% so we still continue to drag along the bottom.
-8:30AM EST Empire State Mfg. Survey prev 2.29 Consensus 4.50 (range-8.00 to 6.00)
175 manufacturing executives from New York report the change
in an assortment of indicators from the previous month. We are looking for a
slight increase.
-10:00AM EST Business Inventories prev 0.4 % Consensus 0.3 %
(range0.0 % to 0.5 %)
We generally would like to see this as low as possible,
business turning over inventory more quickly leads tomore sales and higher
revenue, notice how high it was during ‘08-’09. We are expecting a slight tick
up.
Tuesday:
-8:30AM EST Consumer Price Index
CPI M/M change Prev
-0.3 % Consensus 0.0 % (range -0.4 % to 0.1 %)
CPI less food & energy Prev 0.2 % Consensus 0.2 % (range
0.1 % to 0.2 %)
After last read on CPI showed signs of deflation, we expect
levels to tick back up to unch.
-9:15AM EST Industrial Production
Production M/M change prev -0.1 % Consensus 0.3 % (range -0.1 % to 0.5 %)
Capacity Utilization Rate prev 79.0 % Consensus 79.2 %
(range 78.9 % to 79.4 %)
Manufacturing M/M prev 0.4 % Consensus 0.2 % (range 0.1 % to
0.5 %)
-Monthly index of industrial production and the related
capacity indexes and capacity utilization rates cover manufacturing, mining,
and electric and gas utilities. We are looking for an increase in production,
but a continued slowdown in manufacturing.
-10:00AM EST Housing Market Index
Prev 29 Consensus 30 (range 29 to 32)
-National Association of Home Builders produces a housing
market index based on a survey in which respondents from this organization are
asked to rate the general economy and housing market conditions. Not used as
much as other indicators, but still nonetheless important to look out for.
Levels strangely enough near ’07 highs and have been on the move up in the past
few months.
Wednesday:
-8:30 AM EST Housing Starts
Starts prev 0.708 M consensus 0.745 M (range 0.720 M to
0.800 M)
Permits prev 0.780 M consensus
0.775 M (range 0.750 M to 0.850 M)
Beginning of excavation of the foundation for the building.
We continue to bump along the bottom not gaining any real traction, so look for
continued weakness.
-10:00 AM EST Ben Bernanke speaks
-2:00PM EST Beige Book
-Released 8x a year, Fed district
banks compile economic conditions from each of the 12 Federal Reserve districts,
comes out about every 6 weeks and usually 2 weeks before FOMC interest rate
decisions.
Thursday:
-8:30 AM EST Jobless Claims
Prev 350 K consensus 365 K (range
360 K to 375 K)
-Expect claims to tick back up after a shortened holiday
week print that gave us the lowest in about 4 years.
-10:00AM EST Existing Home Sales
Prev 4.55 M consensus 4.650 M (range 4.600 M to 4.730 M)
-Look for numbers to hold steady under 5 million for a while
now.
-10:00AM EST Philly Fed
-prev -16.6 consensus
-8.0 (range -15.0 to -2.0)
After last months worse than expected print which we were
threatening to break to lows from last year, consensus expects to be up 50%,
though still contraction under 0. Measures manufacturing activity from Philadelphia
area, usually a market mover.
-10:00AM EST Leading Indicators
Prev 0.3 % consensus -0.1 % (range
-0.2 % to 0.2 %)
Tons of earnings coming out this week, nearly 300 if I’m not
mistaken, but here are some key ones to watch:
Monday: Manpower, Morgan Stanley, Packaging Corp,
Peabody Energy,
Tuesday: Coca-Cola, Comerica, CSX, Goldman Sachs,
Intel, Johnson&Johnson, Kansas City Southern, Mosaic
Wednesday: Abbot, Altria, American Express, Bank of
America, BlackRock, F5 Networks, IBM, PNC Financial, Stanley Black&Decker,
Bank of New York Mellon
Thursday: BB&T, Blackstone, Capital One
Financial, Diamond Offshore, Fifth Third Bancorp, Freeport McMoRan, Microsoft
Friday: Cemex
About half listed above are banks/financials, but I will
mostly be reviewing consumer names since banks aren’t something I like to put
forth capital in (explained in previous blogs)
Let’s take a look at CSX, they are a rail-based
transportation service, including traditional rail service and the transport of
intermodal containers and trailers. Rail names have been on a tear since the
’09 recovery, but with the slowdown we have been experiencing I don’t forsee
great things happening to the rails this year. CSX in particular, is the
largest transporter of coal in this sector, and with low oil and nat gas
prices, the move out of coal to nat gas and cleaner energy is currently taking
place. We can see from this what happened to Patriot Coal last week filing for
bankruptcy and the rest of the coal sector taking huge hits, most at all-time
lows. CSX has been on the decline now for a year or so, net income is down 10%
and the stock has underperformed its peers by 30% in that same time. The
outperformers such as Union Pacific (UNP) do more consumer and consumer
discretionary means of transportation, so they will continue to do well. I
expect a not so good report from CSX and would not be long the name, but other
rails with less exposure to coal and more to consumer names look strong.
Above, comparison of CSX to Union Pacific, Kansas City
Southern, Norfolk Southern
I do want to highlight one of my long positions (no I did
not buy this, was given as a gift many many years ago) Fifth Third Bancorp.
They are one of the mid cap size regional banks, do most of their business in
the northeast US. They do business in the lines of Commercial Banking, Branch Banking, Consumer
Lending and Investment Advisors. Regional banks have had substantial
outperformance to the larger banks due to less exposure to CDO’s and more
day-to-day transactions (no large trading CIO units that we know of) so less
risky. Net income, revenue has been recovering slowly, along with long-term
debt decreasing.
Above, comparing FITB with the basket of Regional banks the
KBW Index, FTIB has outperformed them this past year, though stable since
recovering from shares dipping below a dollar in March ’09, FITB in my opinion
will continue to have slow but steady revenue growth, while increasing their
dividend (Dividend went from 1 cent to 8 cents from ’10 to ’12, share price
relatively unaffected, yield is somewhat favorable at 2.3%)
Next, looking at Altria, this stock has been smoking hot
(pun intended) for quite some time, and why not? Marlboro is one of the best
brands of cigarettes out there today, and no matter the price or tax hike added
to the pack, people will continue to smoke. This is good for the states; there
has been very little effect on smokers to stop because of prices on packs of
cigarettes, the addiction is too strong. Looking at Altria’s net income, it has
nearly doubled since Q2 ’11. Don’t be put back by the share price or the high
p/e ratio, this is a defensive name to own, dividend is a solid 4.6% yield and
has been increasing its dividend payout 10% a year since ’09.
The only problem I see is that there has not been a pullback
in share prices for some time now, if the report comes in a bit light, that is
when you buy. With a 20% run up already this year, I’m not saying it is due for
a pullback, but watch out if something substantial does happen and be ready to
buy or reload more positions.
Last, looking at Packaging Corp. They are a producer of
containerboard and corrugated cardboard products in the US. On a consumer
related business, along with basic essential needed goods and healthcare, they
package about anything you can think of that comes in a cardboard box. Last
quarter’s results were overall very good with revenue continuing to grow at a
moderate pace. Net income was substantially lower due to a net non-operating
gain (one time) which was taxed very heavily, nothing of major concern. They
have outperformed their main competitor Rock-Tenn by 10% in a year as well as
paying a nice 3.45% dividend. Even in a global slowdown, this is a key name to
own, you can see by a chart from ’08 that PKG rebounded and more in about a
year’s time.
That’s all for this week, stay tuned on twitter:
@peter_eller10 for more updates.
No comments:
Post a Comment