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We are pleased to bring you our third installment in the New Features blog series in Stock Rover. In this post we cover several key refinements and improvements to Stock Rover that we think you will find beneficial. To see what we have added, click here.
For our paid subscribers, we have added a new view to the Library that you might find useful to add to your Table. The View name is “Analyst Revisions” and it give a good indication of how analysts are revising their forecasts for companies. It also indicates how close companies are to their target prices and how much dispersion there is in the analysts’ target prices. To import this view, Select Library → Views and find “Analyst Revisions” in the list, check the import box and then click on the import button.
Retail sales, adjusted for seasonal changes but not adjusted for inflation, were up +0.1% in September, matching sales gains in August, and increasing +4.7% compared to September 2017. Motor vehicle sales were up +0.8% (+1.1% Y/Y), while gasoline sales were down -0.8% (+11.4%), and excluding those two relatively volatile sectors brought overall monthly sales to a 0.0% change for the month and a +5.5% gain for the year. After a +9.8% gain in August, restaurant and bar sales dipped -1.8% for the month, possibly due to the effect of September’s storms in the Carolinas, but gained 7.1% for the year. Sales at sporting goods/hobby/book stores increased +0.7% after a -4.4% drop in August but fell -3.8% for the year. Department stores dropped -0.8% (-1.5% Y/Y), limiting the overall general merchandise increase to +0.3% (+3.6% Y/Y). Nonstore retailers, which include online retailers, grew +1.1% in September after a +10.0% gain in August, and were up +11.4% for the year.
Industrial production increased by +0.3% in September, down from August’s +0.4% rate, with a notice that the rate was estimated to have been held down by less than 0.1% due to the effects of hurricane Florence. On a quarterly basis, the industrial production rate slowed from +5.3% in Q2 to +3.3% in Q3. Energy production slowed in Q3 from +12.9% to +5.1% as oil and gas drilling dropped from +56.1% in Q2 to a -8.0% drop, and consumer energy products swung from a +13.4% increase to a -9.4% drop. However, motor vehicle production reversed Q2’s -14.0% drop to a +18.1% increase, and manufacturing in general grew at +2.8% in Q3 vs. +2.3% for Q2. On a quarterly basis, capacity utilization increased for manufacturing, from +75.5% to +75.8% in Q3, and for mining, from +91.2 to +92.2, but fell for utilities, from +78.9% to 77.6%.
The minutes of September’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting noted that most participants believed the FOMC’s economic projections for real GDP growth and unemployment were accurate, although an increasing number since their previous meeting believed that their projections for the unemployment rate were more uncertain. Also, while most participants felt that inflation predictions were accurate, those that felt they were not accurate believed that inflation would trend higher than projected. A few participants expected that it would become necessary to raise rates above the longer-run neutral rate to a more restrictive rate to curb inflation, while other committee members would only favor a more restrictive stance if there were clear signs of rising inflation and an overheated economy.
Wednesday October 24 – New Home Sales
Friday October 26 – 2018 Q3 GDP, First Estimate
