Industrial Production Falls 0.1%

Another slowish day for the market. The S&P 500 is currently down about 4 points to 1982. On our Buy List, Cognizant Technology Solutions ($CTSH) made some news today. The company is buying TriZetto for $2.7 billion which will expand their reach into the healthcare market.

eBay (EBAY) is down again today. The stock has been falling ever since Apple unveiled its Apple Pay program. The stock had an interesting day on Friday when it sold off early then rallied sharply. There was some loose talk about someone making a bid for eBay. I’m a doubter but stranger things have happened. In any event, I don’t see how eBay can be so close to $50 per share.

I forgot to mention this on Friday but there was a very good report on retail sales. The Commerce Department said that retail sales were up 0.6% in August. I think that lower prices at the pump are helping out. The number for July was revised higher from flat to 0.3% growth.

One bad sign was today’s report on Industrial Production. For the first time since January, Industrial Production fell. Wall Street had been expecting a 0.3% increase. Instead, we got a 0.1% decline. The number for July was cut from 0.4% to 0.2%. That’s a bad sign, but it’s too early to say it’s a trend.

A fall in IP isn’t that unexpected even in a strong up trend. IP had done very well over the last 62 months even though it fell on ten of those months. The data series is naturally volatile.

Posted by on September 15th, 2014 at 2:39 pm


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