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non-residential construction

Macro: Construction spending

By |2023-12-01T13:43:57-05:00December 1st, 2023|Economy|

Construction spending growth accelerates again. This is all about non-residential construction spend which is growing at 20% yoy whereas residential spend is only growing by 1% but is at least finally a positive contributor. To be fair, the additive growth top GDP has been impressive, but it is waning. November 2022 was a big contributor and the annual growth equation [...]

Toward Rate Cuts: What If The Landmine Was Real?

By |2019-07-01T17:05:31-04:00July 1st, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It was supposed to be the Chinese government who was going to rescue the global economy. Once the rationalizations ended and officials around the world realized there was serious economic weakness building at the end of 2018 instead of a globally synchronized inflationary recovery, the green shoots of 2019 were going to be in one big part a fiscal stimulus [...]

Greenspan’s Massacre Masterpiece

By |2019-03-13T13:16:33-04:00March 13th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

What most Economists “learned” from the Great Inflation was how important psychological factors had become. You would think that such a huge monetary disconnect would teach especially monetary officials the importance of monetary competence. However, as Upton Sinclair once wrote, paraphrasing, it’s difficult to get a central banker to understand money when his paycheck can be saved by blaming you [...]

No Building Left To Build A Boom

By |2019-03-04T18:26:44-05:00March 4th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For the last several years, the US recovery following its experience with the global 2015-16 downturn has been lacking in several key dimensions. Reflation #3 in the real economy has reflected the lack of momentum and altitude in the snapback across the eurodollar system. As such, of all the reflation episodes this last one was upside down; it was by [...]

Construction Problems

By |2018-08-01T17:07:57-04:00August 1st, 2018|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Total construction spending rose 5.5% year-over-year (unadjusted) in June 2018. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, spending fell rather sharply two months ago though that doesn’t really matter given the short-term noise of month-to-month changes. The real problem is this 5.5% given that public construction has been moving higher since last year’s big hurricanes. In other words, it’s the private channel that [...]

The Anti-Reflation Story Is The One That Mattered, And The Treasury Market Isn’t The Only One Telling It

By |2018-01-03T12:38:39-05:00January 3rd, 2018|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The Treasury market isn’t the only place where the idea of “globally synchronized growth” is proving a tough sell. The collapse of the yield curve suggests, in fact, it isn’t being bought one bit. Apart from bonds, US companies aren’t warming to the economic warming, either. The labor market apart from the unemployment rate remains suspiciously subdued. According to the [...]

The Construction Example

By |2017-10-03T12:04:26-04:00October 3rd, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Construction spending rose slightly in August after two months of serious declines. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of $1.22 trillion, that’s slightly less than the estimate for November 2016 when “reflation” (sentiment) was at its apex. It’s a pattern that we see repeated throughout the economic accounts; some growth in the second half of last year but then instead of [...]

Not The ‘Usual’ Weakness

By |2016-08-01T17:24:52-04:00August 1st, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Construction spending had been increasing steadily since the start of 2011. Factoring both the size of the decline due to the housing bust and the timing of the turnaround in sales and prices, the mere fact that construction activity had been recovering was not really economically significant. As with most economic sectors, positive growth even to a substantial degree did [...]

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