Industrial Production disappointed in the US last month, dragged down by auto production. Despite the return of an oil sector tailwind, IP was up just 2.2% year-over-year in July 2017 according to Federal Reserve statistics. It marks the fourth consecutive month stuck around 2% growth. The lack of further acceleration is unusual in the historical context, especially following an extended [...]
Completing a busy day of US economic data, Industrial Production was, like retail sales and inflation data, highly disappointing. Prior months were revised slightly lower, leaving IP year-over-year up just 2% in June 2017 (estimates for May were initially 2.2%). Revisions included, the annual growth rate has been stuck around 2% now for three months in a row, suggesting like [...]
Last month US Industrial Production rose rather quickly. Gaining more than 1.1% month-over-month, it might have appeared that the US economy once dragged into downturn by manufacturing and industry was finally about to experience its belated upturn. But frustration is how it has always gone, not just in this latest phase but for all phases since around 2011. Each good [...]
Industrial Production rose sharply in April 2017, up nearly 1% month-over-month (seasonally-adjusted). It was the largest single month increase since February 2014 during the depths of the Polar Vortex. Steady contributions from the oil sector as well as a rebound (of sorts) in Motor Vehicle Assemblies added to the gains. Year-over-year, IP was up just 2.2% in April despite the [...]
Having finally established that the economy of the “rising dollar” was appreciably worse than first estimated, we can turn our attention back toward figuring out what that means for the near future and beyond. According to the latest estimates for Industrial Production, growth has returned but in the same weird asymmetric sort of way that is actually common for the [...]
There has always been something like Newton’s third law observed in the business cycles of the US and other developed economies. In what is, or was, essentially symmetry, there had been until 2008 considerable correlation between the size, scope, and speed of any recovery and its antecedent downturn, or even slowdown. The relationship was so striking that it moved Milton [...]
Industrial production rose year-over-year in December 2016, the first plus sign in more than a year. For the month, IP was up 0.5% from the same month in 2015, following declines of 0.7% in each of the prior two months. In seasonally-adjusted, month-over-month terms, IP increased by 0.8% in December after being essentially flat for four months before. Under normal [...]
Even if you believe that the economy we find today is irrelevant to one that will result from a range of better policies under a Trump administration, you still have a timing problem. I fully believe that “reflation” has to this point been about promise, and that mostly relates to what can “only” be different now that the age of [...]
Last December, the Federal Reserve confirmed that it thought its monetary task was nearing completion but under conditions that’s its own data showed were nothing like recovery. In simple terms, they declared recovery and recession simultaneously on the exact same day. In orthodox economics, that isn’t actually impossible, though we have to define both terms. The factual basis for each [...]
Industrial production continued its slow, shallow contraction, unusual in any economic climate but perhaps more compelling here in describing the different direction markets are taking. Clearly, as discussed several times before, certain parts of certain markets are betting that different is going to be effective where the same old was clearly not. The actual economy, however, has yet to show [...]
Stay In Touch