Energy, Retail & More

Your Quick Take on Today's Events...

Commentary from The Distilled Perspective of
Patrick T Bulger, Capital Management & Analytics

Unit Labor Costs (QoQ) (Q4) surges higher at a 4.4% from a previous 1%
This feeds into my view of a continued margin squeeze.

Nonfarm Productivity (QoQ) (Q4), drops considerably from 4.9 to 1.8%

Energy
Now seeing reports of Jet Fuel Shortages,
When the flow of energy is interrupted, the ripple effects can be vast.
The longer this drags on, the expectation is for conditions to decline.
To varying degrees, most economies are effected by the global supply chain.

US Retail
My internal retail barometer is indicating that we've just completed
The weakest Q4 since the decline into the GFC

This falls in agreement with Sentiment and jobs numbers that I follow, and
Have posted about.

Redbook (YoY), Note, Redbook is a Nominal Number, which means before inflation.
Comes in at 6.7% vs. a prior 6.4%. As a nominal figure, how much of that is inflation and where is the volume to make up for our base case of being in a margin squeeze?

Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity,
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, otherwise known as the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Report
Came in with the similar signs of weakness that we are seeing in our other data.

You
Data, Risk and Psychology are Major Factors in the management of your capital.
Did any "People" advise you of today's data?
I did...

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Best,
PTB