Is the rate hiking cycle almost done? Not the question on everyone's minds right now so a good time to ask it, I think. A couple of items caught my attention recently that made me at least think about the possibility. There has been for some time now a large short position held by speculators in the futures market for [...]
There are a lot of reasons why interest rates may have risen recently. The federal government is expected to post a larger deficit this year - and in future years - due to the tax cuts. Further exacerbating those concerns is the ongoing shrinkage of the Fed's balance sheet. Increased supply and potentially decreased demand is not a recipe for [...]
There has been a lot of talk about the economic impact of the recent tax reform. All of it, including the analyses that include lots of fancy math, amounts to nothing more than speculation, usually informed by little more than the political bias of the analyst. I am guilty of that too to some degree but I don't let my [...]
Economic Reports Employment We received several employment related reports in the first two weeks of the year. The rate of growth in employment has been slowing for some time - slowly - and these reports continue that trend. The JOLTS report showed a drop in job openings, hires and quits. The Fed has been talking about a tight labor market [...]
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 [...]
Economic Reports Scorecard The economic data calendar has been light the last two weeks but the tone of the data has generally improved. On the whole though I find it hard to discern a big change in the US economy. The two manufacturing surveys were bright spots in the ongoing manufacturing recession. Empire State and Philly Fed both were much [...]
Economic Reports Scorecard – 11/6/15 to 11/20/15 The economic data continues to come in largely less than expected with the manufacturing/industrial parts of the economy faring worst. In what may be a developing trend, housing starts were less than expected and with last home sales reports makes for a short string of weaker reports. Generally, real estate has been trending [...]
Top News Headlines Hillary debates aging hippie Sanders and some other guy. Dell to buy EMC in biggest tech deal ever, assuming bond market is agreeable. Walmart earnings take a dive, stock follows. Gold turns positive for the year. Economic News China trade figures disappoint. US PPI and CPI both negative on the month. Inflation? What inflation? Retail sales up [...]
The BEA estimated that GDP in Q3 accelerated to 2.8% over Q2 2013, coincidentally matching the Q/Q growth rate from Q3 2012 (more on that in a moment). The largest “boosts” to GDP came from tumbling imports and growing inventories. Those two segments accounted for 1.2% in additional “growth” over Q2. While inventories rose and consumers and businesses bought less [...]
Stocks continued their relentless advance last week and while I remain skeptical of the rally, I must admit its persistence has been impressive. All good things must come to an end though as the bond market demonstrated in fairly dramatic fashion just last week. Long term bonds (as measured by the IShares 20+ year Treasury ETF, TLT) are down nearly [...]
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