It happened a month later than expected, but it still happened. The NASDAQ managed to combat market naysayers and popped up to touch above its all-time closing high for the first time in over 15 years. Keep in mind, the NASDAQ’s all-time intraday high remains at 5,132 which was last reached back on March 10, 2000. While the economic data was primarily mixed during today’s session, today’s earnings-heavy schedule is what’s really moving the needle. Odds are good that the bears will be talking up a storm about another “tech bubble” in the coming days, but for now solid, substantial earnings numbers should keep them quiet.

The early domestic economic releases didn’t result in much of a rally or a crash, quite possibly because the Street needs time to digest these mixed numbers. Firstly, trends in the initial jobless claims are pointing to a substantial improvement for the April employment situation. Initial jobless claims for the week of April 18^th were little changed from the prior week up to 295,000, but when compared to the 4-week average, at 284,500 this shows a month-over-month improvement of about 20,000 claims. The comparison matches the sample weeks for both the March and April employment reports. Continuing claims for the week of April 11^th, rose by 50,000 jobs to 2.335 million, however the 4-week average declined by 22,000 to a new 15-year low. Compared to the same time a month ago, continuing claims dropped by a huge 99,000 jobs. The unemployment rate for insured workers is unchanged for the fourth week in a row at a 15-year low of 1.7%. Ultimately, there are no special factors impacting this week’s numbers, although adjustments surrounding the holidays are always tricky to analyze. We expect a major snapback in the jobs market for the April report, and following March’s dismal report, this should not be too hard to beat.

Next, after a slew of relatively positive housing data out this week, there was a bit of an upset in the new home sales for March. Last week’s data showing declines in housing starts and permits resulted in a surprising blow to the overall housing outlook. Yesterday’s data seemed to reverse this view, however we’re back to square one as new home sales fell by a very steep 11.4% to an annual rate of 481,000 homes while expectations were for 520,000.

For the most part, the biggest declined came from the South where new home sales fell 15.8% in the month. This follows a revised 9.3% declined in the prior month, but this latest reading does not spell good news for the region. Additionally, the Northeast contributed to the drop in sales, but this region is the smallest by volume. The West also posted a decline of 3.4%, however sales in the Midwest rose in March by 5.9%. Overall, more new homes came to the market in March, up by 4,000 units to 213,000 nationwide. However, this resulted in the ratio of supply relative to sales increasing sharply to 5.3 months’ supply from 4.6 in February. Even with the rise in this ratio, it is still unlikely that builders will cut any current project plans.

The softness in sales was confirmed by the price data where the median new home price fell by 1.5% to $277,400. Year-over-year, this puts the median price of a new home down 1.7% while overall sales are up 19.4%. This discrepancy is discouraging since it’s clear that builders are majorly discounting the price of construction. Overall, this data on new home sales is difficult to draw conclusions from, especially given how mixed the housing data has been. However, it’s clear that the current data won’t do the sectors any favors in the near-term.

Lastly, while we prefer the accuracy of the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) reading on the purchasing managers index (PMI), Markit offers a decent forecast into that world, and so far the numbers look iffy for April. Early indications on this month's manufacturing activity are not encouraging including a 54.2 reading for the PMI flash versus a final reading of 55.7 in March. Weakness in export demand, due to a strong US dollar, has been really hurting the industrial sector as of late. New export-orders show the first decline since November 2014, while overall new orders are growing at the softest rating since January 2015. Last week, the Empire State and Philly Fed manufacturing reports were equally weak, showing better readings at the headline level, but weakness among all orders tied to exports. The manufacturing sector is having a really rough 2015, and it is clear that this is not the sector currently carrying the weight of the US economy.