Nominal personal spending grew by just over 4% in October 2016, a number that sounds impressive by virtue of what we have become used to in this economy. That was much less than the 5.2% in spending growth from the middle of 2014 just prior to the effects of the “rising dollar”, which was itself a low point for a [...]
The personal savings rate rose slightly in August, though as I have shown before in truth we have no idea what the actual savings rate might be. The revisions to it over the years have made it one of the least reliable indications in the economics catalog. The reason is the suddenly frequent tendency of the BEA to seriously revise [...]
The only economic data of note today was the notoriously unreliable personal income and spending figures. The data series contained within the suite are subject to not just major benchmark revisions but significant revisions within just the high frequency time frames. Perhaps the most pertinent example of this is the personal savings rate which has been revised all over the [...]
The Personal Savings Rate is a rather important economic indication. Because it is derived from the difference between income and spending, it can tell us a great deal about the state of the economy from the consumer perspective. Unfortunately, nobody can say with any degree of confidence what the savings rate is right now, or even what it has been [...]
In advance of today’s GDP release, it was expected that the Q2 estimate would be around 2.6% (it was only 1.2%). The major reason for the anticipated rebound was “strong” consumers, a theme that has been a part of the dominant economic narrative since 2014 introduced the phantom “best jobs market in decades.” No matter what happens in the economy, [...]
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 [...]
Personal spending had fallen, seasonally-adjusted, for two consecutive months placing warning upon the household sector. The just-released estimates for January show only the smallest of rebounds, just +0.1%, in February suggesting that nothing yet has been resolved in either direction. Unlike last year, there is no surge that would indicate a temporary straying from the otherwise only tepid path. This [...]
Stocks had a great day today unshaken by whether the manufacturing part of the economy was growing more quickly or at the slowest rate in 13 months. Confusion isn’t part of the asset inflation lexicon. In economic news, the U.S. manufacturing sector had its best gains since October, according to Markit's final Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index that rose to 55.1 [...]
With the Chinese manufacturing indications “unexpectedly” disappointing over the weekend it was absolutely no surprise that US estimates of income and especially spending would as well. These overall, broader figures align closely with other indications of a dangerously weak household sector, very much explaining why the rest of the world is screaming about impending contraction. For all that intuitive sense [...]
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