Extraordinary times call for extraordinary commitment. I never set out nor imagined that a quarter century after embarking on what I thought would be a career managing portfolios, researching markets, and picking investments, I’d instead have to spend a good amount of my time in the future taking apart how raw economic data is collected, tabulated, and then disseminated. Yet [...]
It was hard not to hear about cryptocurrencies last week what with the bear market and all. Actually, you can make the case that bitcoin has had two bear markets since mid-April. There was a 27% decline followed by a 27% rally, followed by last week's rout. From its intraday peak in April to its intraday low last week, bitcoin [...]
Disappointing some, US real GDP managed to come in 6.2% higher in Q1 2021 when compared to Q4 2020. This was slightly less than the “consensus” which had figured around 6.6% growth and then the more optimistic calculations including the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tool that had only yesterday pointed to 8% (with some outlier whispers dialing up double-digit gains). Even [...]
Silver linings have been hard to come by lately, especially last year. Twenty-twenty was a total washout in almost every way imaginable; and that’s an understatement. Still, there were some small signs of genuine progress such as Jay Powell’s thorough contribution to QE debunking. Bank reserves went sky high while practically nothing else did (other than equities), certainly not inflation. [...]
It’s a palpable impatience. Having learned absolutely nothing from the most recent German example, there’s this pervasive belief that if the economy hasn’t fallen apart by now it must be going the other way. The right way. Those are the only two options for mainstream analysis (which means it isn’t analysis). You can see it in how everything is framed. [...]
Flash PMI’s from IHS Markit for the US economy were split in October. According to the various sentiment indicators, there’s a little bit of a rebound on the manufacturing side as contrary to the ISM’s estimates for the same sector. Markit reports a sharp uptick in current manufacturing business volumes during this month. The manufacturing index came in at 51.5, [...]
When I first got in this business oh-so-many years ago, my mentor told me that I shouldn't waste my time worrying about the things everyone else was worrying about. As I've related in these missives before, he called those things "well-worried". His point was that once everyone was aware of something it was priced into the market and not worth [...]
The Chicago Fed’s National Activity Index (NAI) fell to -0.36 in July. That’s down from a +0.10 in June. By itself, the change from positive to negative tells us very little, as does the absolute level below zero. What’s interesting to note about this one measure is the average but more so its rate of change. The index itself is [...]
ACT Research, the leading publisher of commercial vehicle industry data in North America, reported last week that freight rates in for-hire trucking had declined in May. It was the fourth month in row when prices had been pressured. More and more, there is a downturn growing in the transportation sector. Commenting on freight rates, Tim Denoyer, ACT’s VP and Senior [...]
We have arrived at revisions season once again. It’s that time of year when many if not most (I don’t actually keep track) of economic accounts undergo heightened scrutiny. More data is collected from more comprehensive surveys using far larger samples. These are compared to the existing high frequency panels and changes are made as necessary. Sometimes these are substantial, [...]
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