Retail sales rose (seasonally adjusted) in March 2018 for the first time in four months. Related to last year’s big hurricanes and the distortions they produced, retail sales had surged in the three months following their immediate aftermath and now appear to be mean reverting toward what looks like the same weak pre-storm baseline. Exactly how far (or fast) won’t [...]
Very early on in the turn, I mean very early, you could already tell there were substantial problems underneath. By the time CNY started lower, against all expectations, there had already been serious signs of trouble in China for months by then. In that initial seemingly minor drop in early 2014, the PBOC’s actions belied a stable system. If you knew [...]
Allusions to a labor shortage continue to be ubiquitous. Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published yet another such story under the headline Iowa’s Employment Problem: Too Many Jobs, Not Enough People. Ostensibly about the experiences of companies trying to hire in the one state, the implication was clear enough. If Iowa, IOWA, has a labor shortage, how bad [...]
Last month Chinese trade statistics left us with several key questions. Export growth was a clear outlier, with outbound trade rising nearly 45% year-over-year in February 2018. There were the usual Golden Week distortions to consider, made more disruptive by the timing of it this year as different from last year. And then we have to consider possible effects of [...]
In June 2008, ICAP actually launched a US-based alternative to LIBOR. It ended up as nothing more than one very minor footnote lost in a sea of more pressing problems and events. Still, that they even tried is somewhat significant and relevant to today. Before the whole cheating scandal came out, there were questions surrounding just what LIBOR was indicating. [...]
Former US Senator Augustus Hawkins died in November 2007. It may seem superstitious to superimpose meaning on the timing, but maybe the only way it wouldn’t was if he had passed right on August 9 of that year. When I think of Humphrey-Hawkins, I don’t think of it at all as the vast majority seems to. I remain struck by [...]
Today is inflation day, as can happen on the occasional month. The US CPI came in without signs of acceleration despite the relinquishment of the Verizon effect on the statistical bucket. Financial markets are unenthused by all this, but you might not know why. The spread between 5- and 30-year Treasury yields, as well as the gap for 2- and [...]
As it turns out, those “transitory” inflation factors were worth only about 25 bps on the core CPI rate. This isn’t at all surprising and was as usual entirely predictable. But when you don’t have any answers there is a lamentable tendency toward denial or deliberate evasion, even if that leads toward the ridiculous. Base effects are a part of [...]
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to produce and release its economic projections and assumptions every year. Typically, the CBO does so under initial assumptions each January. Those estimates are then revised, if necessary, later in the year with more complete information. This past January, however, the release was delayed. As anxious as most [...]
Wholesale sales, seasonally adjusted, bounced back moderately in February 2018 after a sharp decline (revised even lower) in January. Sales in the latest monthly figures are left still lower than in December and only slightly more than in November. This is the familiar aftermath of Harvey and Irma’s aftermath. Unadjusted, year-over-year wholesale sales increased by just 6.9%. As the storm [...]
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