According to Edmunds.com, in June 2017 the average length of a new vehicle loan has been stretched to a record 69.3 months. JD Power says that incentives last month were running at more than 10% of MSRP, the eleventh time over the past twelve months where manufacturers have so heavily discounted. And yet, the auto industry would have us believe [...]
When it comes to central bank experimentation, Japan is always at the forefront. If something new is being done, Bank of Japan is where it happens. In May for the first time in human history, that central bank’s balance sheet passed the half quadrillion mark. It should be unsettling where a trillion is a rounding error. And yet, despite what [...]
We often have discussions in the office that consist primarily of asking questions. Sometimes they are questions we don't think people are asking enough, sometimes questions we are sick of hearing and most often questions which we can't answer. Not questions that only we can't answer but rather ones that no one can answer based on real facts. I find [...]
With inflation tailing off as oil price base effects fade, statistics that turn nominal into real terms will start looking better. Real Disposable Personal Income per Capita, for example, increased in May 2017 at a faster rate than in January. The difference, however, isn’t all that much. The CPI in January was 2.50% and 1.87% in May, but Real DPI [...]
Before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in his experimental Bell X-1 aircraft, it was long thought by many to be an extremely difficult challenge if not impossible altogether. Many test pilots spoke of a monster that lay beyond the speed of sound, one ready to destroy any human machine attempting to go faster. In fact, a year before Captain [...]
In my last update two weeks ago I commented on the continued weakness in the economic data. The economic surprises were overwhelmingly negative and our market based indicators confirmed that weakness. This week the surprises are not in the economic data but in the indicators. And surprising as well is the source of the outbreak of optimism in the bond [...]
Real GDP in the US was revised up to 1.41% quarter-over-quarter (annual rate), still the fourth of the last six to be less than 1.5%. While economists and policymakers have taken to judging the economy by its downside, that is only because the extent of the global problem is revealed by complete absences of an upside. The occasional decent quarter [...]
One of the first "wins" for the Trump administration - heck, maybe it's only win - was the approval of the Keystone pipeline. After the State Department issued the permit, Mr. Trump had this to say: "It's a great day for jobs and energy independence," Trump said, calling the pipeline "incredible" and "the greatest technology known to man or woman." [...]
In light of light inflation measurements, central bankers have no other choice but to step up their rhetoric. Mario Draghi took the mantle earlier this week and has been joined at various points by others. The message they are sending is one that is purposefully muddied. There isn’t left to them any other choice. There are only two pillars holding [...]
Despite Mario Draghi’s supposedly misinterpreted comments earlier this week, there are global indications that the best of this round has already been reached. Policymakers are always going to claim things are improving, that much is given. But there is tremendous difference between that and what has occurred, especially if it is indeed rolling over worldwide. The earliest indicators for China’s [...]
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