The Big Picture

Tommy Emmanuel: One-Man Band
Succinct Summations of Weeks Events (1/17/14)
Nobody Likes Bonds!
Here’s The Thing: Alec Baldwin Interviews Jerry Seinfeld
10 Friday AM Reads
Discounts, Luxury Sales, and the Consumer (JCP, BBY et. al.)
XMSR Stand Up with Pete! Interview
New Porsche 911 Targa

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 04:00 PM PST

Tommy Emmanuel created a life for himself as a one-man band and has become one of Australia’s most respected musicians. With light vim and pure talent, he demonstrates his unique playing style, which is notably a development of the Travis picking technique and blending of rhythm and melody.

In his career, he’s played on recordings for Air Supply and Men at Work and in his twenties he joined one of Australia’s biggest rock acts, Dragon. Now, as a two-time Grammy nominee with a career spanning five decades, he has, for several years, performed over 300 concerts annually. He’s worked with Martin Taylor on a jazz-inspired duet album The Colonel and the Governor. His most recent original material is Little By Little (2011).

Succinct Summations of Weeks Events (1/17/14)

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 12:30 PM PST

Succinct Summations week ending January 17, 2014

Positives:

1. Core retail sales (ex-auto & gas) gained 0.6% v expectations for a 0.3% rise.
2. GM announced first dividend in almost 6 years.
3. 2013 housing starts were the best year since 2007.
4. Import price index declined 1.3% in 2013.
5. Remember Italian yields? The 3-year yield fell to a new Euro lifetime low.
6. Empire state index surged to 12.5 in January, up from a revised reading of 2.2. in December.
7. The mega banks reported earnings this week, the majority are doing well and their balance sheets are continuing to improve, despite massive legal costs.
8. Weekly jobless claims come in at 326k v expectations of 328k.
9. Consumer prices rose 0.3%, the largest rise since June; inflation is bad, deflation is worse (still below the Fed's target, accommodation still likely).
10. The first 2014 beige book revealed economic activity is expanded (moderately of course) in 9 out of 12 districts.
11. Industrial production grew 0.3% m/o/m, the fastest pace since Q2 2010.

Negatives:

1. Bernanke's term ends next week, market participants owe him a fist bump.
2. Tough week for retailers, Best buy saw its stock drop by nearly 30% on Wednesday.
3. Construction on new homes fell 9.8% in December
4. 2013 retail sales rose by 4.2%, the smallest annual gain since the recession ended.
5. The NAHB declined (barely) in January and missed expectations (number is still strong, however).
6. U.S. wholesale prices rose in December for the first time in 3 months and saw the biggest gain since June (offsetting positive #9).

Nobody Likes Bonds!

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 10:30 AM PST

Earlier this week, we noted that "the Consensus Hates Bonds." That is a small part of the reason my firm decided to increase our exposure to specific types of fixed income this year after having been significantly underweight bonds in 2013. I mentioned we added preferreds and corporate fixed income, obtaining that exposure primarily though exchange-traded funds.

That struck a chord with J.C. Parets, a chartered market technician. J.C. is founder of Eagle Bay Capital, LLC, and is the author of the blog All Star Charts.

Continues here

Here’s The Thing: Alec Baldwin Interviews Jerry Seinfeld

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 09:00 AM PST

Source: WNYC

10 Friday AM Reads

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 07:30 AM PST

Good Friday morning. Here are my end-of-the-week, Hey! its a 3 day weekend reads:

• How to Detect a Market Bubble (FT) see also 3 signs that stocks cost too much (MarketWatch)
• How Washington Beat Wall Street (Politico)
• Retail store traffic has fallen, and may just stay that way (WSJ) see also A First Look at the Target Intrusion, Malware (Krebs on Security)
• Noah: Why Economics Gets a Bad Rap (The Week)

Continues here

Discounts, Luxury Sales, and the Consumer (JCP, BBY et. al.)

Posted: 17 Jan 2014 05:45 AM PST

It has been a confusing few weeks for followers of the retail sector. A mix of disappointing earnings (See Best Buy, J.C. Penny's and Sears) along with pockets of luxury strength plus strongly trending auto sales has created a jumble. Let's see if we can make some sense of the entire mess.

Let's start with the tales of the American consumer's demise. The early read from the National Retail Federation (You remember them) was for retail sales to drop 2.7% on Black Friday, and for gloomy holiday sales. Well, they reported this week that holiday sales rose 4.6% year-over-year (with the caveat I have no clue what their methodology actually is). A nearly 5% increase is not exactly a gloomy sales season. This is consistent with Morgan Housel's claim that everything is doing much better than a few years ago and no one is happy about.