Not Abating, Not By A Longshot
Since I advertised the release last week, here’s Mexico’s update to Industrial Production in November 2019. The level of production was estimated to have fallen by 1.8% from November 2018. It was up marginally on a seasonally-adjusted basis from its low in October. That doesn’t sound like much, -1.8%, but apart from recent months this would’ve been the third worst [...]
Very Rough Shape, And That’s With The Payroll Data We Have Now
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has begun the process of updating its annual benchmarks. Actually, the process began last year and what’s happening now is that the government is releasing its findings to the public. Up first is the Household Survey, the less-watched, more volatile measure which comes at employment from the other direction. As the name implies, the [...]
Global Headwinds and Disinflationary Pressures
I’m going to go back to Mexico for the third day in a row. First it was imports (meaning Mexico’s exports) then automobile manufacturing and now Industrial Production. I’ll probably come back to this tomorrow when INEGI updates that last number for November 2019. For now, through October will do just fine, especially in light of where automobile production is [...]
The Word Is: Prolongada
You don’t have to tell Mexico the bad news about how US auto sales ended 2019. They already know; in fact, knew ahead of time. Production workers who should be busy building more and more new cars for sale outside of Mexico, particularly for prospective American owners, must instead be worried if they’ll still have a job if things go [...]
The Word Is: Protracted
What relaunched Europe’s QE four months ago was the word “protracted.” Central bankers love its opposite, the term “transitory”, which they use quite often at every sign of a weakening economy. To be fair, economies ebb and flow all the time and we don’t want policymakers to jump at every minor swing one way or another. The problem, it seems, [...]
SPECIAL REPORT: 2019 In Review
No one knows what the future holds. Not me, not you, and certainly not Wall Street. But while the future is impossible to see, the present is clear for anyone willing to listen to the story the market tells every day. Here's what it said in 2019: Click here to download “2019 In Review: Year End Economic Assessment” (Sign-Up Required). This report includes [...]
More Trends That Ended 2019 The Wrong Way
Auto sales in 2019 ended on a skid. Still, the year as a whole wasn’t nearly as bad as many had feared. Last year got off on the wrong foot in the aftermath of 2018’s landmine, with auto sales like consumer spending down pretty sharply to begin it. Spending did rebound in mid-year if only somewhat, enough, though, to add [...]
The Real Trade Dilemma
When I write that there are no winners around the world, what I mean is more comprehensive than just the trade wars. On that one narrow account, of course there are winners and losers. The Chinese are big losers, as the Census Bureau numbers plainly show (as well as China’s own). But even the winners of the trade wars find [...]
The Booming Depression
It is the inversion of the seventies. Four now five decades ago, the economy was caught in the grips of an inflationary condition it seemed unable to escape. It just went on and on, and while it was roaring officials up and down the spectrum assured us that they were doing their best, the only things that were able to [...]
Stay In Touch