Business

As of today, 95% of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings for Q3 2016. 72% of the companies have reported earnings above the mean estimate and 55%of S&P 500 companies have reported sales above the mean estimate. More importantly, however, according to FactSet in Q3 the earnings recession officially ended after five consecutive quarters of EPS declines: for Q3 2016, the blended earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 is 3.0%. The third quarter marks the first time the index has seen year-over-year growth in earnings since Q1 2015 (0.5%).

It's that time of year again... when Americans load up on debt to buy stuff they don't need with money they don't have because Kim Kardashian told them to...

Next week, Black Friday and Cyber Monday will kick off the start to the U.S. holiday shopping season, during which consumers are expected to spend a total of $655.8 billion this year.

With the average bill coming in at $938.50 for holiday spending, where are people finding the extra cash?

As we noted on Thursday, "it was ludicrous for Obama to leave China out of things. China is the second biggest economy in the world, third if you treat the EU as a block. Had China been in the deal all along, we may not have seen the ludicrous provision that allowed companies to sue governments. That provision was one of the key reasons the deal failed. With the election of Trump, TPP is officially dead. China, not the US, will be at the center of a new Asian trade pact."

Authored by Michael Cembalest, JPMorgan Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy,

In light of the dramatic spike in interest rates since the Trump victory, where as we reported yesterday and as Bloomberg comments overnight, "yields on benchmark 10-year Treasuries posted their steepest back-to-back weekly increase since 2001" leading to the "the worst rout in the fixed-income universe in 15 years"...

... and which coupled with a surge in the 10-Year breakeven rate - a gauge of US consumer price expectations - to the highest in more than 18 months...