Industrial production contracted for the eighth straight month in April, dropping 1.07% year-over-year. That’s a slight improvement from those prior months but likely only until April’s estimate is revised lower in the coming months. That has been the trend of late in both immediate terms as well as serious long-term revision to benchmarks. As far as the former, it suggests [...]
The US Treasury yield curve is flattening again, with parts finally in 2016 surpassing the bearishness exhibited to start 2015. The mainstream is just now starting to notice likely because unlike last year there are no longer credible excuses to simply wish it away. “Transitory” is not a word you find much anymore, replaced instead by reluctant and forced acknowledgement [...]
The calendar has been playing an outsized role in economic accounts this year, from leap year adding to February and now different months for Easter. With March entertaining the holiday this year, it seems as if seasonal adjustments might have been unduly harsh with retail sales. Into April, without Easter, seasonal adjustments may have been too charitable. Unadjusted, total retail [...]
Wholesale sales rose just 0.8% in March, following a similar rise in February. For the quarter, sales dropped almost 2% from Q1 2015. More importantly, inventory barely budged in either March or for the quarter. Rising just 0.2% in the latest month, that was the smallest yearly gain since June 2010. In Q1 overall, wholesale inventories were also practically unchanged [...]
If the Fed is data dependent in its monetary policy setting, then the current update for the labor market should keep them still inactive (or at least not raising the federal funds rate that nobody uses). While the main payroll report last Friday was disappointing, it remains largely irrelevant as does the unemployment rate in determining FOMC tendencies. We are [...]
In August last year, Caterpillar announced that it was moving manufacturing jobs back to America from Mexico. The truck and equipment company had entered what is called the “vocational truck” business back in 2011 but in a partnership with Navistar. Using its facility in Escobedo, Nuevo Leon, Navistar assembled these vocational units for Caterpillar under that Caterpillar’s brand. Last year’s [...]
Wall Street is predictably overreacting to the unpleasant payroll report. It is understandable in a way since, as noted yesterday, the Establishment Survey and the unemployment rate are all that is left to suggest the economy remains on track and any weakness would be temporary. It was a strained position to begin with, especially since the economy shifted lower almost two [...]
The underlying fundamentals of oil and energy remain highly negative. Oil prices have been supported by sentiment for some time now, but that hasn’t changed much from between under $30 to over $40 at the front end. In the latest weekly update from the US EIA, domestic oil production fell rather sharply in the last week of April. It was [...]
The BLS released its updated productivity estimates showing that Q1 2016 was negative for the second straight quarter and the fourth of the past six. Such negative and flat productivity in any real sense doesn’t make sense. This disparity seems to be, as always, in the BLS serially overstating the employment gains. The level of increase in total hours worked [...]
When commenting on any weakness in the US economy, it has become common even shorthand for any outlet or author to affix the conventional explanation. Suspiciously low growth rates and far too many outright contractions, especially in manufacturing and industry, are blamed on overseas weakness and the dollar as if absent that foreign interference all would be sailing along right [...]
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