Durable orders decreased for the second month in a row. The October drop of 0.5% or $1.2 billion was driven by a decrease in the ordering of transportation equipment. Transportation equipment ordering has been down three of the last four months.
Retail sales in October were the highest they have ever been. The increase of 1.7% outpaced the expected increase of 1.2%. The largest increase of 4% came from non-store retailers.
Equity markets maintained their post Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting gains whereas bond yields reversed course and headed lower. Index level dispersion was minimal with large caps, small caps, and NASDAQ all posting gains between 0.5% to 1.0%.
Equity markets were up every day this week as small caps staged a huge breakout. Equities rallied into the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting despite a cautionary tone from the bond markets.
Welcome to the first edition of Trends Over Time, a new quarterly chartbook from BTC Capital Management. We hope this quarterly report will help to provide a wider context about a variety of the facts and figures reviewed in our regular communications such as Weekly Insight, Five in Five and Investment Insight.
Equity markets were led by the NASDAQ this week, which posted gains of 0.8%. Under the surface there was some weakness as the Russell 2000 fell 1.6%. Emerging markets were also soft with a decline of 1.4%.
Earnings season is moving. 20% of S&P 500 Index companies have reported their financial performance for the third quarter of 2021. The companies that have reported show earnings growth of 45% over the third quarter of 2020.