CLIENT TALKING POINTS
EUROPE
They don’t have Facebook in the Italian MIB index which is up well over +11% year-to-date. Guess what? Asian and European stocks didn’t particularly care about what happened in the growing US Social Media bubble yesterday. Impressively, the DAX and EuroStoxx50 are both up this morning, holding TREND supports. Meanwhile, US Social Media bubbles are popping as the Candy $KING gets crushed.
US Consumer
The only sub-sector in the US stock market that has already gone bearish on both our TRADE and TREND durations is US Consumer Discretionary (XLY down -4.1% year-to-date). We'll say it again: again #InflationAccelerating slows consumption growth.
UST 10YR
The 10-year yield is doing precisely what it should be doing (falling) as consensus comes to the realization that US #GrowthSlowing in 2014 isn’t just about the weather. 2.70% on the 10-year is compressing the Yield Spread (10-year minus 2-year) by 7 basis points on the week.
TOP LONG IDEAS
OC
Construction activity remains cyclically depressed, but has likely begun the long process of recovery. A large multi-year rebound in construction should provide a tailwind to OC shares that the market appears to be underestimating. Both residential and nonresidential construction in the U.S. would need to roughly double to reach post-war demographic norms. As credit returns to the market and government funded construction begins to rebound, construction markets should make steady gains in coming years, quarterly weather aside, supporting OC’s revenue and capacity utilization.
DRI
Darden is the world’s largest full service restaurant company. The company operates +2000 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, including Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn and Capital Grille. Management has been under a firestorm of criticism for poor performance. Hedgeye's Howard Penney has been at the forefront of this activist movement since early 2013, when he first identified the potential for unleashing significant value creation for Darden shareholders. Less than a year later, it looks like Penney’s plan is coming to fruition. Penney (who thinks DRI is grossly mismanaged and in need of a major overhaul) believes activists will drive material change at Darden. This would obviously be extremely bullish for shareholders and could happen fairly soon driving shares materially higher.
Asset Allocation
| CASH | 20% | US EQUITIES | 10% | |
| INTL EQUITIES | 12% | COMMODITIES | 18% | |
| FIXED INCOME | 20% | INTL CURRENCIES | 20% |
THREE FOR THE ROAD
TWEET OF THE DAY
UK Retail Sales +3.7% in FEB as #StrongPound powers the purchasing power of The People @KeithMcCullough
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see..." - Henry David Thoreau
STAT OF THE DAY
Connecticut lawmakers have become the first in the country to pass legislation that would increase a state’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017, the same rate President Obama wants for the federal minimum wage. The bill passed the General Assembly, which Democrats control, largely along party lines. (New York Times)
