Searching For Positives

And not finding many...

Where to start?

US Economy:

On Friday, Industrial Production for March was reported to have declined more than expected:

Later on Friday, Chinese Q1 GDP was reported at an annualized +6.7%.

However, on Saturday (somewhat under the radar), the quarter to quarter data was released at +1.1%. In an article by Bloomberg Intelligence, they suggested that something was not adding up and that there was a discrepancy between the quarter to quarter data and the annualized data:

(click on the chart to enlarge)

Finally, the much ballyhooed OPEC and Russia oil production cap meeting ( that pushed oil prices higher last week) ended in failure because Saudi Arabia and Iran cannot agree. Certainly the politics of this is not lost on many: Saudi Arabia is not happy with the nuclear accord granted to Iran, so there is, for the moment, not much hope for any real or perceived agreements. Oil prices have fallen 4% (or thereabouts) and may test the lower support level of the recent, but tenuous up-trend channel:

The C$ is weaker, global stock prices are weaker, but perhaps less than some might have thought, so despite the potential for more uncertainty and greater volatility, the hope for something better in the future remains in the psychology of financial market participants.

Earnings (with only about 10% of S&P 500 companies having reported) are coming in at better than the significantly lowered expectations (so that might also be seen as a positive for some).

We shall talk about all this and more (including our strategic portfolio adjustment ideas) on our weekly client webinar tomorrow. The recorded version will be released at or close to 5pm EDT at http://www.highrockcapital.ca/current-edition-of-the-weekly-webinar.html 

Feel free to tune in for a listen...