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capital goods

The Cycle Reduces, And Starts All Over Again

By |2017-01-27T17:37:37-05:00January 27th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Nonresidential Fixed Investment, the GDP component most alike capital expenditures, broke above $2.2 trillion in Q4 for the first time in over a year. It was up for the third straight quarter, suggesting that perhaps the start of the year and its near recession could be the worst of at least the appearance of negative signs in business investment. As [...]

Flight of Durable Goods

By |2016-12-27T13:12:16-05:00December 27th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The Census Bureau reported last week that durable goods (ex transportation) shipments were up 2.4% in November year-over-year (NSA). It was the third time in the past ten months that shipments have risen, and the highest growth rate since December 2014. New orders for durable goods (ex transportation) were also up, +3.3%, the fourth time this year. Rather than suggest [...]

Now It’s A Boom

By |2016-12-07T13:20:20-05:00December 7th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

There is a distinction between actual, meaningful growth and plain positive numbers. Recession everyone can agree on, as nearly every economic account (but not all) finds itself with a negative sign. Because of the binary model that the mainstream associates with all economic conditions, the absence of contraction is conflated with meaningful growth, even where the statistics are nothing like [...]

The 2014 Economy Lingers On Under The Hope For Something Different

By |2016-11-23T12:18:39-05:00November 23rd, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For the month of July 2014, total durable goods orders exploded higher in a fit of Boeing. The growth in aircraft orders in percentage terms was so large as to be meaningless. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, total durable goods (using the latest benchmarks) went from $236.3 billion that June to $290.8 billion for July. Coming as it did in the [...]

The Story of Durable Goods Is the Story Of The (Global) Economy

By |2016-10-27T18:57:33-04:00October 27th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Durable goods continue to show that there is no difference between the economy of 2015 and the one being described by these numbers in 2016. To the “transitory” narrative, it is the death blow, which is why so many central banks and central bankers are busy exploring other options (while as quietly as they can writing down the future economy). [...]

Moving Beyond Normal

By |2016-09-28T11:33:47-04:00September 28th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Durable goods continue to suggest a weak economy that only seems to remain in that state. Year-over-year, unadjusted estimates for new orders rose slightly for the first time since May, while seasonally adjusted total orders (including the transportation sector) were fractionally lower at $226.9 billion. That amount was 2% less than January 2016 and 4.3% below August 2014. Once again [...]

As Summer Heats Up, So Does The Rhetoric

By |2016-08-25T17:12:03-04:00August 25th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Today’s durable goods report was uniformly ugly, if not borderline atrocious. The view from especially capital goods, the vital investment that the US economy sorely needs to snap out of its slump, is that spring is definitely over. Contraction accelerated in almost every corner, with durable goods shipments (ex transportation), for example, falling by almost 4% year-over-year, the worst month [...]

Summer Now Too In Factory Orders

By |2016-08-04T18:02:13-04:00August 4th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Factory orders declined rather sharply in June, offering more evidence that the (economic) summer might be upon us. It was not a surprise given that the flash durable goods estimate also for June already indicated as much, since durable goods provide a significant basis for factory orders. The unadjusted series showed a decline of 5.6%, the worst by far since [...]

Durable Goods Start To Suggest Summer

By |2016-07-27T11:39:01-04:00July 27th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The seasonal spring rebound seems to have reset all the economic narratives. When economic accounts, along with financial markets, started to seriously slide toward the end of last year, for the first time even the mainstream began to admit, grudgingly, that weakness wasn’t just some remote happenstance that was a minor nuisance to an otherwise robust US economy. The idea [...]

Durable Goods Add To The Idea of Depression (Small ‘d’)

By |2016-06-24T17:03:34-04:00June 24th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

There wasn’t anything new or surprising in the advance durable goods report. Shipments (ex transportation) were flat and orders were up 1% year-over-year (NSA). Capital goods (non-defense, ex aircraft) shipments fell 3.4%, the tenth straight month of contraction, while new orders were down again (2.6%) for the sixteenth time out of the past nineteen months. The slump only continues. With [...]

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