In addition to the worrisome durable goods report (in the respect that it just continues the same contraction part of the slowdown), consumer confidence slipped suggesting that the rebound in stocks and prices of other risky assets are not striking a direct correlation. There may be a delayed effect, with “confidence” or sentiment in April still more focused on the [...]
Without the assistance of an extra day as in February, durable and capital goods orders and shipments returned to the usual contraction. As is typical for this part of the slowdown, these are not huge declines but merely the continuation of contraction now stretching into a second year. Durable goods orders (ex transportation) were in March 0.23% less than March [...]
Calendar effects, base effects, and holidays continued to plague retail sales estimates. Where February 2016 included a 29th day of extra selling/buying, March finds an early Easter holiday relative to last year (it was in April). The result is difficult comparisons where the unadjusted series is not measuring underlying consumer growth but these other factors. That should change, however, in [...]
Household spending in February 2016 in Japan rose year-over-year for the first time in six months. That was the sum total of any good economic news for the monetary-stricken economy, and it doesn’t really survive closer inspection. The rise in spending was due largely to “other” activities you don’t associate with strong economic rebounds. The overall figure was just +1.6% [...]
The Markit Services PMI flash reading for March rebounded from the sub-50 reading in February, but only slightly. The calculation continues to suggest that the “services economy” is following the manufacturing and “goods economy” even if with some lag. The internals of the survey were not any better, with the new orders component falling to the lowest level of the [...]
Orthodox economic theory assigns recession to some exogenous “shock.” Without it, an economy is supposed to grow indefinitely along its trend or potential baseline so long as NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) is maintained. As you can imagine, economists and policymakers spend most of their time on that latter part which is one reason, though more so ideology, that [...]
According to Discern Investment Analytics, the number of retail store closings in the first two months of 2016 was about a third more than the closings in the same two months last year. That’s bad news just in terms of the raw increase, but more so given that there was a wave of shutting retailer outlets last year, too. Store [...]
It is increasingly difficult to account for the estimates provided by various statistical agencies when there is no consistency not just with other non-governmental series but within each. The latest retail sales report has nothing in common with anything including itself. The mess features major revisions for the prior two months that simply leave the calendar as demarcation. Unadjusted retail [...]
Revolving consumer credit turned upward in March last year, which signaled to economists that the true end of the Great Recession was at hand. The largest impediment to the monetary version of the recovery was the “debt hangover” from the mortgage surge during the housing mania. Consumers, rightfully cautious after that disastrous experience, spent the early years of the “recovery” [...]
The fiscal year for retailers ended in January with nothing like what it was supposed to be. Still, as always, the suggestions remained that a rebound in consumerism would be before too long. If it wasn’t to be evident right away in February, the start of the 2016 fiscal year was at least supposed to be back in the plus [...]
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