“High frequency data”, as some of these data series are known, causes an inordinate problem for those that are unwilling to move outside of monthly changes. These are the kinds of accounts that are “noisy” and can be difficult to handle absent any real context, but that does not stop them for being used persistently to pigeonhole a viewpoint. Last [...]
The housing construction data was delayed purportedly by the government shutdown in October. The expectation was that the September data would be released concurrent with the October data; which itself would be delayed by a few weeks. Given the state of housing uncertainty driven by financial parameters and recent trajectories, these are relatively important statistical updates. Rather than get the [...]
I think that the initial impulse driving FOMC concerns over “too much” monetary stimulus tied closely to three factors: repo markets, junk bonds and housing. Home prices in previous bubble markets have been on fire again, and in no way do those prices reflect actual supply and demand factors (they very much ignore basics like demographic trends). Prices reflected and [...]
The bond market rout appears to have settled as various Fed speeches have walked back the idea of tapering QE. The damage has been done in many places, however, regardless of whether QE stays at full throttle $85 billion or drops just slightly to $70 or $65 billion a few months hence. The hardest hit seems to have landed in [...]
I had a conversation with Joe Calhoun yesterday regarding an uptick in construction activity in Miami and some other places in the Southeast. He mentioned that some of his contacts had in the past few months begun to see a huge increase in the number of bidsheets for construction work that was ready to break ground – some of it [...]
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