Janet Yellen has essentially confirmed QE’s demise; good riddance. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is the final end of QE in America, just as it hasn’t been the end time after time in Japan (and perhaps now Europe treading down the same ill-received road). What’s interesting is really watching these central bankers talk themselves in circles about why that is. [...]
In addition to this morning’s “noisy” and suddenly more tame CPI report, there is a broad-based decline in commodity prices that is more than a little bit outside of “usual” volatility. It should be noted at the start that commodity prices are not always direct reflections of economic activity or expectations for future activity, as other factors intertwine and take [...]
In last week's update I mentioned that within our own shop we often have disagreements about the economy and markets. Based on my email flow, that seems to have surprised and possibly confused some people. So, I want to spend some time this week talking about investing more generally rather than concentrating on the week to week data flow and [...]
The driving theme for credit markets for all of 2014 so far has been a rapid flattening in the treasury and funding curves that had not “wanted” to abate for any reason. Whether it was the short-lived infatuation with wage “inflation” or any of the contradictory and mushish assessments from any of the suits sitting at the FOMC, the curves [...]
One more point on retail sales and consumer spending, as though the figures presented earlier are, I think, all pretty demonstrative of what is taking place in the economy, they can still be enhanced by taking account of additional factors. None of the data from retail sales or Gallup’s measures of economic advance are “deflated” or adjusted for changes in [...]
Case in point on corroborative evidence divorced from the government’s statistical adjustments, Gallup’s various surveys on the economy, focused almost exclusively on consumers, do not conform to the idea of strengthening resolve nor even more broad-based payroll expansion. The latest figures for July in the daily tracking of self-reported spending ticked up over June, but that observation, once again, is [...]
The disappointment from retail sales has been foretold by numerous other indications for months now. The idea that the economy would suddenly shoot higher after the “aberration” of the wintry first quarter was predicated almost exclusively on the mainstream interpretation of payrolls. For all that hope and optimism, it has never gone further than the BLS’ Current Employment Survey as [...]
For now, it seems as if the attempt to recreate 2005 is being born by revolving credit. There was, until the middle of last year, the holdover hope for the then-burgeoning mini-bubble in real estate, but events since the taper-driven bond selloff have conspired against that factor. While revolving credit might represent a restarted channel for monetary intrusiveness, the primary [...]
The BLS updated its figures for economic and labor productivity, including the revisions for the first quarter. As it stood prior, the calculation for productivity was among the worst of the past four decades. Given that GDP was already revised lower in the interim, that meant that productivity estimates were going be also sent further downward. Since productivity is a [...]
Wholesales sales and inventories are still relatively better in June than earlier in the year, though the level of inventory looks nothing like what is being counted for GDP. Overall, the pace of sales continues to be relatively stuck in a low-growth track that shows little signs of being elevated. For an economy being determined marginally by inventory, supply chain [...]
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