The numbers all change with each month, but nothing really changes. And that includes how the economy changed in 2012 and clearly again in 2015. By raw count of the payroll figures, there were positive numbers in every location in the latest update as only full-time employment was close to zero growth (only +3k for November). The labor force grew [...]
Argentina’s election is more complicated than simple economics, but for the first time in a very long time there will be no Peronist in office. It may have been billed as a contest between the candidate of the market and that of the state, but either would have found the same bottom opening up on the nation. As so many [...]
What should be written about GDP has nothing to do with whether 1.5% is meaningfully different than 3.9%. Everything gets focused upon the quarterly variations and, often intentionally, loses all that is important about the economic context. That 1.5% is weak and ineffectual, but that it continues the string of irregular and unstable approximations is all that truly matters; especially [...]
Written Tuesday Oct 27 Anyone looking to buck the “dollar’s” direction in September has been sorely disappointed by almost every single data point so far. The latest is durable goods which was even more ugly across-the-board than August – and that includes the rather stark downward revisions for last month. Year-over-year, new orders (ex transportation) fell almost 6% after declining [...]
The problem with using GDP as the primary means of economic accounting is its very nature. By attempting both comprehensiveness and precision, the resulting calculation is an agglomeration of various methods and sources, many of which are quite dynamic apart from static regressions. By that construction alone, GDP is susceptible to high degrees of kurtosis where assumptions find little. In [...]
What is taking place on the wholesale level of the supply chain is simply unprecedented. Admittedly, the current iteration of the wholesale data series only dates back to 1992, so there is some possibility of a similar disparity at some point in actual economic history. However, at present, inventory continues onward with only a slight deviation and slowing recently while [...]
The superficial transcendence of stocks notwithstanding, there continues a deeper and more devious trend in financial markets. As noted earlier today, while stock rationalizations were stoked by the inconsistent logic of “lower for longer”, other markets, the “dollar” in particular, are being thoroughly infected by great doubt. In some open episodes, that doubt has turned to fear, but the permeation [...]
If we go by the track of the “dollar” in setting economic expectations, we would expect to have seen a noticeable drop in economic activity in the first part of the year followed by a very tepid rebound lasting only a few months (“rebound” is too charitable of a qualifier, more like “not getting directly worse”). The ugly appearance of [...]
Lost in the euphoria over second quarter GDP revisions is the ongoing corporate struggle in terms of profits and how that suggests a more than reasonable proportion of GDP’s ability to measure the economy is overstated. To this point, I had focused more so on the productivity problems as they related to a potential over-optimism of the labor market but [...]
Last week, industrial production ticked higher but only somewhat while this week the Empire Fed manufacturing survey has caused extensive jitters to extend at least another week. Given those somewhat contrasting views on American industry they can be reconciled by simple timing matched against what the “dollar” has been doing across that period. Oil prices, that vital connection between “dollar” [...]
Stay In Touch