Smart Investing with Brent & Chase Wilsey
Smart Investing is the radio show where Brent and Chase try to make investing easier to understand. They demonstrate long-term investment strategies to help you find good value investments.
Episodes
Inflation comes in hotter than expected, is that a problem?
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed September headline inflation was up 2.4% compared to last year, which was a little higher than the estimate of 2.3%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy was up 3.3% compared to last year and it also came in a little higher than the expectation of 3.2%. While the numbers were a little hotter than expected, headline CPI was down fro...
More jobs data points to a healthy economy The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTs) showed a surprise increase in the month of August. Openings totaled 8.04 million, which topped the estimate of 7.64 million and July’s reading of 7.71 million. While this is still well off the highs from just a couple of years ago, there are still 1.1 available jobs for every person looking for one. On the inflation front, I believe it was...
We do have a housing problem in this country, but it may not be the one you’re thinking.
The price of homes has continued to rise and it has left some people out of the housing market, but that may not be a bad thing. I say that because people are doing anything they can to buy a home at these high prices. This includes risky endeavors like cashing in their retirement savings or borrowing from friends and family. The Atlanta Fed’s ...
The labor market continues to soften
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTs) showed job openings continued to fall across the country in the month of July. It was reported that available positions fell to 7.67 million in the month, which 237,000 lower than June’s downwardly revised number and well below the estimate of 8.1 million. While this marked the lowest level since January 2021, there were still close to 1.1 job o...
Declining CPI opens door to lower interest rates
Inflation concerns are falling as the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed an increase of 2.9% compared to last year, this would mark the lowest reading since March 2021. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy was also positive as it came in at 3.2% which would mark the lowest reading since April 2021. Areas that continued to put upward pressure on inflation included food away fr...
“Friendly fraud” is costing businesses $100 billion a year
I was surprised to learn of a new term called friendly fraud. This is when a customer disputes a legitimate charge they made on their credit card, debit card, or another payment method. According to a recent survey,35% of Americans admit to committing this kind of fraud, and 40% know someone who has. This has come at a huge cost to merchants as it is estimated to cost them ...Did the markets overreact to employment numbers?
Markets headed largely lower Friday morning after nonfarm payrolls grew by just 114,000 in the month of July. This was well below the estimate of 185,000 and the downwardly revised June number of 179,000. Total revisions for the previous two months led to numbers that were 29,000 lower than previously reported. The major concerns here are that job creation is well below the average m...Q2 GDP not as strong as the headline numbers show
While Real Q2 GDP increased at a 2.8% annualized pace and easily topped the estimate of 2.1%, there were some likely one time impacts that lifted the numbers. The major outlier was the change in private inventories as it added 0.82% to the headline GDP number. As we discussed after Q1 GDP, private inventories negatively weighed on GDP during that quarter as it subtracted 0.42% from ...Retail sales beats expectations but shows consumer is still softening.
June retail sales came in flat compared to the previous month, this topped the expectation for a 0.4% decline. Compared to last June, retail sales were up 2.3%. Areas of strength included non-store retailers (+8.9%), food services and drinking places (+4.4%), clothing and clothing accessories stores (+4.3%), and electronics and appliance stores (+2.7%). Both fur...Inflation continues to cool, creating more hope for rate cuts.
The June Consumer Price index (CPI) rose 3.0% compared to last year, which was below last month’s reading of 3.3% and the expectation of 3.1%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy rose 3.3% from a year ago. This was below last month’s reading and the expectation which were both 3.4%. This also marked the smallest annual increase in core CPI since April 2021. Food wa...Largest US Banks
I continue to remain optimistic about investing in the large financials, specifically the money center banks. For the most part they trade at good valuations and the recent stress test shows they remain healthy. All 31 of the largest US banks passed the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test, which provided a hypothetical scenario where unemployment levels rose to 10%, commercial real estate values decreased by 40% ...May Retail Sales
May retail sales showed the economy is continuing to decelerate, which is exactly what I think we need to see. The release showed retail sales were up 0.1% compared to last month, which missed the estimate of 0.2%. When looking at May 2023, retail sales were up 2.3%. While this doesn’t show a booming economy, I still believe it is a healthy level. Nonstore retailers continued see strong growth as sales were up 6.8%...
May CPI
I would say I was very optimistic after the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) was released. Headline CPI increased 3.3% compared to last year, which was below the estimate and last month’s reading which both stood at 3.4%. Core CPI which excludes food and energy was up 3.4%, which was below the estimate of 3.5% and last month’s reading of 3.6%. T...
Jobs Report
The Jobs Report showed the labor market continues to remain on good footing considering nonfarm payrolls rose by 272,000, which easily topped the estimate of 190,000. Strength occurred in health care and social assistance (+83.5K), leisure and hospitality (+42k), professional and business services (+33k), and construction (+21k). Governme...
PCE
The core personal consumption expenditures index (PCE), which is the Fed’s preferred measure for inflation did not show much progress in the month of April. Year over year core PCE was up 2.8% which matched the previous month’s reading. If you want to get really mathy with the numbers and move over one more decimal place there was actual a positiv...
AI Boom
You may have missed the AI boom in NVIDIA, but for patient longer-term investors there could be a good investment opportunity in energy going forward. As more companies begin to use AI, the demand for energy will increase. Keep in mind that this is on top of expected growth in the electric vehicle market and if it continues on in future years,...
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