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auto sales

Retail Sales Slump Back; Auto Sales In Particular

By |2016-06-14T16:09:21-04:00June 14th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

As with other economic accounts, retail sales dropped back in May after the temporary rebound coincident to calendar effects. Overall sales, including autos, grew just 1.9% over May 2015, well below the 3% level that historically defines recessionary conditions. That growth rate was the 39th worst in the entire data series (out of 281 months), placing it in the lower [...]

Bi-Weekly Economic Review

By |2016-06-10T15:41:18-04:00June 10th, 2016|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Stocks|

Economic Reports Scorecard Concern about recession is growing again as formerly strong portions of the economy turn down. The last two weeks brought reports of new weakness in the labor market, continued slowing in construction and renewed weakness in manufacturing. Auto sales were also weak based on the reports from individual manufacturers. The state of auto sales is frankly a [...]

The Polar Vortex Economy of 2014 Was A Warning; Wholesale Sales Prove It Should Not Have Been Dismissed As Weather

By |2016-06-09T18:08:43-04:00June 9th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Wholesales sales are right back on track again after two months of being affected by the calendar. After rising 0.8% in February and 0.6% in March, sales declined by 5.3% Y/Y in April. For the first four months of the year combined, wholesale sales were down nearly 3% compared to the first four months of last year. Since sales in [...]

Mainstream Expects All At Once; In the Slowdown There Are Only Bits And Pieces But Still Pointing Down

By |2016-06-01T11:48:09-04:00June 1st, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

As with China’s manufacturing, so goes global manufacturing. Rather than rebounding out of 2016’s dismal start, the failure to follow through in April and now May simply proves yet again that nothing has changed. These PMI sentiment surveys are believed to be far more precise than they really are. Even though the ISM Manufacturing PMI, for example, rose slightly to [...]

Retail Sales Do Add Up

By |2016-05-13T13:26:06-04:00May 13th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

Bi-Weekly Economic Review

By |2016-04-15T19:11:27-04:00April 15th, 2016|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Stocks|

Economic Reports Scorecard Survey based economic reports continue to run counter to real world, actual data. Since the real data tends to lag, an optimist would probably take this as good news. A pessimist would dismiss it altogether as useless survey based data. Me? I'm a realistic optimist. I see the survey based data as potentially positive since attitude and [...]

Will Autos Be The Cyclical Trigger?

By |2016-04-14T18:37:37-04:00April 14th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

What is most amazing about the current “manufacturing recession” is that it has occurred while automobile production has remained rather stout. That would suggest the state of production beyond motor vehicles is much worse than the headline contraction rates. However, that might all be changing as we know “something” is amiss in the auto segment. Inventories of all kinds of [...]

The Actual Direction of Sales

By |2016-03-15T11:42:37-04:00March 15th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It is increasingly difficult to account for the estimates provided by various statistical agencies when there is no consistency not just with other non-governmental series but within each. The latest retail sales report has nothing in common with anything including itself. The mess features major revisions for the prior two months that simply leave the calendar as demarcation. Unadjusted retail [...]

All That’s Left Is The Cleanup

By |2016-01-15T11:51:55-05:00January 15th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The scale of the inventory bloat in the latter half of 2015 was perplexing. By any reasonable standard, it doesn’t make any sense that businesses would be so bold as to almost ignore sales (and this applies at each level of the supply chain). The only way that it could have possibly occurred was businesses setting aside what was happening [...]

The Cloud of Wholesale Autos

By |2016-01-08T18:12:28-05:00January 8th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Lost amidst the celebrations about the new auto sales record achieved in 2015 was that sales in December were more than disappointing. There were an overwhelming number of articles on the subject, and nearly all of them identical in focusing almost exclusively on 2015 as a whole rather than how sales were at the end. It is entirely understandable, not [...]

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