Week in Numbers Report Feb 17th 2023

Report for the 7th week of the year spanning Friday February 10th to Friday February 17th 2023.

The top performing assets year-to-date (YTD) so far have all been cryptocurrencies except the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index has made the 10th spot with a YTD gain of 16.3%. View header image in full screen.

Economic Reports

Monday Feb 13th

• No notable economic reports

Tuesday Feb 14th

• NFIB Small Business Optimism for January increased to 90.3 from 89.8 in December
• CPI for January was 0.5% month-over-month significantly higher December’s -0.1% which has been upwardly revised to 0.1%. Year-over-year is now 6.4% which was higher than expected
• Core CPI (excludes food and energy) for January increased 0.4% month-over-month higher than December’s 0.3% which was upwardly revised to 0.4%. Year-over-year is now 5.6% which also came in higher than expected.

Wednesday Feb 15th

• MBA Mortgage Applications Index for last week decreased by 7.7% compared to the prior week increase of 7.4%
• EIA Crude Oil Inventories increased by 16.28M barrels last week compared to prior week increase of 2.42M
• Retail Sales for January increased 3.0% following a 1.1% decline in December
• Retail Sales ex-auto for January increased 2.3% following a 0.9% decline in December which was revised from -1.1%
• Industrial Production for January was unchanged following a December’s decline of 1.0%
• Capacity Utilization for January increased to 77.7% from 77.1% in December
• Business Inventories for December increased by 0.3%, same as November’s increase
• NAHB Housing Market Index for February increased to 42 from January’s 35

Thursday Feb 16th

• Initial Jobless Claims for last week decreased by 1,000 to 194,000 new claims reasonably under expected of 203,000
• Continuing Jobless Claims increased by 16,000 to 1.696 million
• EIA Natural Gas Inventories declined last week by 100 bcf the previous week inventories decreased by 217 bcf (billion cubic feet)
• Housing Starts for January declined 4.5% month-over-month to an annually adjusted rate of 1.309 million, below expected of 1.355 million
• Building Permits for January increased by 0.1% month-over-month to an annually adjusted rate of 1.339 million, less than expected 1.350 million
• PPI for January increased 0.7% month-over-month higher than expected of 0.4%. Year-over-year it’s up 6.0%
• Core PPI (excludes food and energy) for January increased 0.5% month-over-month higher than expected 0.3%. Year-over-year it’s up 5.4%

Friday Feb 17th

• Leading Indicators for January declined by 0.3%, now down 3.6% over the past 6 months.

See more Economic News at Briefing.com.

US Stocks

US stocks were largely flat this week as the Wilshire 5000 closed up only 0.07%. Stocks appear to want to trend higher however the reality of higher than expected inflation means the Fed is more likely to push interest rates higher and or keep rates high for longer than originally priced into the market.

Consumer Discretionary remains strong adding another 1.64% this week, now up 16.31% YTD. Meanwhile Engery took a huge drop this week loosing 6.92% and moving to negative returns YTD of 4.19%.

Global Stocks

European stocks were up last week, France posted the largest gain with 3.06% and the CAC is now up 13.5% YTD. Spain posted the 2nd highest gain for the week of 2.37%. Meanwhile all of Asia and Australia were down last week with Hong Kong leading the decline with a 2.22% loss.

Currencies

The US Dollar was very mixed in the Americas, Europe and Middle East, however was largely up in Asia and Australia. The dollar gained the most to the Malaysian Ringgit with 2.30% and the Thai Baht with a 2.26% gain.

Commodities

Precious Metals and Fuels all lost this week. Platinum dropped 3.19% and is now down 14.9% YTD. Natural Gas continues to plummet falling another 9.51% this week now down 44.57% YTD.

For Construction Materials Lumber prices continue to fall this week, dropping nearly 9%, meanwhile Steel prices jump 12.16%.

In Farming commodities Coffee prices jumped 6.29% up 11.03% YTD.

Cryptocurrencies

Cryptos jumped this week with the total market cap adding 11.1% or 111.5 billion, the total market cap is now at 1.12 billion. MATIC surged this week gaining 24.39%, now up 101.7% YTD. Bitcoin also jumped adding 13.46% for the week.

Other Fascinating Stats

The US National Debt increased .24 billion (Wednesday Feb 8th to Wednesday Feb 15th), to a total debt of $31,454,875,345,039.44 according to the Treasury Department. The National Debt has surpassed congresses approved debt limit of 31.381 trillion for over 4 weeks now. See the Debt to the Penny.

The number of solar Sunspots (magnetic storms on the surface of the sun) decreased this week from 150 to 101. See more about Sunspots and space weather.

There are 5,250 discovered and confirmed Exoplanets across 3,921 confirmed Planetary Systems in our Galaxy. 9 Exoplanets have been confirmed this year so far and there are 9,208 Exoplanet Candidates being evaluated for confirmation. Learn more about Exoplanets from NASA’s Exoplanet Catalog.

7,055 more Bitcoin have been mined during the week, the total supply is now 19,294,151 out of the maximum supply of 21,000,000. The max supply is 91.88% mined.

The Federal Funds Effective Rate has increased a basis point this week to 4.58% with the target rate remaining between 4.50% and 4.75% since February 1st 2023. See more about the Federal Funds Rate.

30 year average mortgage rates in the US have increased this week from 6.12% last week to 6.32% this week. Learn more about 30 year mortgage rates.

Average US regular gas prices have decreased this week 1.57% from 3.44 a gallon last week to 3.39 a gallon this week. See more about US Regular Gas Prices.