Durable and capital goods orders and shipments all increased in December by growth rates consistent with those registered in the months leading up to the big storms Harvey and Irma. We continue to find evidence that accelerated growth in October and November was nothing more than the anticipated after-effects cleaning up after those hurricanes. New orders for durable goods (excluding [...]
If it seems like we’ve been here before, it’s because we’ve never left. On January 30, 2015, the BEA reported a disappointing headline GDP for Q4 2014 following what was truly a blowout quarter the one before. It was that latter one which had many if not most people thinking the end of the malaise was at hand. The Fed [...]
NOTE: This is really the second half of an earlier missive on the changing nature of the eurodollar system post 2014-16. While it’s not absolutely necessary to read the first here, it’s probably a good idea. The reason nothing ever goes in a straight line is that first everything is always changing. How and why are questions we often don’t [...]
While there are those who saw October and more so November spikes in real estate and housing estimates as the beginning of the something big, all the December 2017 statistics suggest nothing more than the easily anticipated hurricane anomalies. Housing construction was back in line with weaker earlier 2017 estimates (particularly starts), while resales were, too. Today we found that [...]
Back in October, the Bank of Korea raised its economic outlook for the country. The central bank’s economic models foresaw rising fortunes, leading them toward a central tendency of 3% growth. At that level, Korea’s economy would be growing at the fastest rate in three years (what happened in between?). It was as much a nod to the idea of [...]
There is a fundamental assumption behind any purchasing manager index, or PMI. These are often but not always normalized to the number 50. That’s done simply for comparison purposes and the ease of understanding in the general public. That level at least in the literature and in theory is supposed to easily and clearly define the difference between growth and [...]
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that sales of existing homes, or resales, declined sharply in December 2017. Falling 3.6% from November (revised lower), that merely suggests what other data has been pointing toward. The hurricanes that hit the South caused distortions in economic conditions, bunching up activity into especially October and November. The lower estimates for December appear [...]
As most people know, the Kansas City Fed has been holding its annual symposium in Jackson, WY, for a very long time. Supposedly a draw for Paul Volcker’s fly fishing hobby when he was Chairman, the conference came to include heavyweights on a regular basis. Most of them, especially those in the early years, however, were duds. It wasn’t until [...]
The advent of open and transparent central banks is a relatively new one. For most of their history, these quasi-government institutions operated in secret and they liked it that way. As late as October 1993, for example, Alan Greenspan was testifying before Congress intentionally trying to cloud the issue as to whether verbatim transcripts of FOMC meetings actually existed. Representative [...]
On April 29, 2011, the US benchmark oil price (WTI) surged above $113 per barrel. It wasn’t just American oil prices, either, as other benchmarks around the world were on a huge run. It was the highest for crude oil in three years, going back to the weeks immediately following Lehman. At that price, more so the parabolic trajectory, it [...]
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