Disappointing some, US real GDP managed to come in 6.2% higher in Q1 2021 when compared to Q4 2020. This was slightly less than the “consensus” which had figured around 6.6% growth and then the more optimistic calculations including the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tool that had only yesterday pointed to 8% (with some outlier whispers dialing up double-digit gains). Even [...]
The ultimate lesson for learning not to rely on one quarter of GDP growth was actually two quarters. In the middle of 2014, GDP posted back-to-back gains that at the time seemed nothing less than fantastic. Even with residual seasonality revisions and new benchmarks, those two quarters remain prominent landmarks in an otherwise bleak landscape. And that is the whole [...]
Last year, the usual rebound in GDP was flipped. Q1’s are, or were before “residual seasonality”, the low mark followed by some surge at some point. In 2015, it was Q2 that originally jumped, hitting almost 4% in the original estimates. What followed in Q3 was frustration, as GDP was first figured to be only 1.5%. It was disappointing but [...]
Both Keynesians and monetarists are almost entirely focused on demand, aiming squarely at spending as the means to economic growth. Since 2008, and really 2007, the amount of “stimulus” recorded in that attempt to beckon “aggregate demand” is unlike anything ever seen before. Trillions and trillions of QE-drawn magic have been unleashed as well as government deficits as large as [...]
Part of the rewriting of GDP in the middle of last year involved adding more components that are not directly observable, leaving them susceptible to more imputations and adjustment processes than GDP normally counts. Changing “fixed investment” to include less well-defined concepts like R&D, “intellectual property” and “entertainment” makes sense intuitively until you actually try to piece together how they [...]
With a growing “meat” scandal in China and elsewhere in Asia, it was not unsurprising to see McDonald’s post a sizable decline in same store sales in the region. The latest figures from July show exactly that, posting a 7.3% decline over July 2013. That compared to a 1.9% decline last year from July 2012, so there is likely a [...]
The two common themes that have emerged from this morning’s memorably rotten GDP report are weather and Obamacare. You know it is bad when mandatory health insurance purchases coupled with a surge in premiums gets PCE to only 1% below what might be considered weak growth. Beyond that, nearly all of the orthodoxy has declared first quarter GDP to be [...]
There was not much unexpected in the factory order data, in fact it was right in line with what we have seen for nearly a year. Orders ticked up slightly, but not outside of expected volatility. The six-month average of Y/Y growth in shipments ex transportation was stuck for a second straight month at close to zero; and fell 0.4% [...]
Following up on the global trade warning out of Australia, commodity prices are acting as another corroborating piece of the global slowdown. Typically, copper acts as a decent barometer of global manufacturing activity, earning the nickname Dr. Copper. Copper prices have slumped recently, moving back to the lows of mid-2011 (just before the European re-recession emerged). What is more amazing, [...]
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