Too Much Winning?

On the campaign trail, candidate Donald Trump rhetorically told audiences they would get tired of too much winning.  Yesterday, that theory was tested in the stock market, which had difficulty maintaining gains after a series of amazing economic data.

First, the ADP reported 230,000 jobs created in September. The street was looking for 180,000.

Rev Up That Diesel

As you know, I have been pointing to the enormous amount of big rig truck orders, which have been on a blistering pace. That pace continued last month with the ten-best months of orders ever. According to FTR North America, Class 8 Truck Orders in September were 42,300, an increase of 92% from 2017 and (+206%) from 2016.

•            2016: 164,000

•            2017: 290,000

•            2018 YTD: 392,808

The sales of big rigs were the highest-ever quarter for sales: 

``The economy is surging right now, putting stress on shippers to find trucks to deliver goods on time…demand, as indicated by the surge in orders, will be even stronger next year.''

-Don Ake, FTR     

Then came the ISM Non-Manufacturing report, which came in significantly above Wall Street consensus.  The employment part of the report reached an all-time record. Respondents are struggling to fill open positions by the end of the year to meet the demand.

• Headline: 61.6 +3.1
• Business activity: 65.2% +4.5
• Employment: 62.4 +5.7

All this winning finally caught up to the market after the 10-year Treasury yield tickled 3.18%, knocking the wind out of the market as the Dow gave up more than 100 points, and the S&P 500 actually slipped into the red.

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All the major indices were about to bounce back but finished well off their highs. And market breadth was mixed with more bullish volume; still, not the kind of broad strength one would associate with another record day for the exchanges.

Too Much Enthusiasm?  No!

Whenever the market is making new highs, the knee-jerk criticism is that there is too much optimism or irrational exuberance. However, that simply isn’t my own personal experience, or what certain surveys suggest.

Today’s Session

Overnight, the 10 Year U.S. Treasury yield hit 3.23% pressuring equities and creating additional anxiety the day ahead of the big jobs report.   Initially, jobless claims edged down 8,000 to 207,000.  All evidence points to a potentially significantly higher jobs numbers from the consensus at the start of the week.

On that note, there are extenuating factors, and modeling between ADP and BLS is different, but the macro drivers are the same.