CHART OF THE DAY: German Growth Slowing

And that’s why we don’t buy macro exposures that are either going straight down or crashing on “valuation.” We buy them when our models start to forecast trending Phase Transitions in growth and/or inflation. 

On that score, here are 3 fresh economic data points from this morning that confirm both slowing and accelerating @Hedgeye TRENDs: 

1. German Retail Sales #slowed (again) to +0.8% year-over-year in JUL
2. Spanish Retail Sales #slowed (again) to -0.6% year-over-year in JUL
3. US Aggregate year-over-year Earnings Growth #accelerated to +25.3% in Q218 

That last data point is based on 495 of the SP500 companies having now reported yesterday’s news. And while next quarter is when the 2-year base effect starts to get materially more difficult, relative to China, EM, and Europe #slowing, long USA was the place to be.