No Bottom In Europe, A New King of the PIIGS
The bounce for Germany seems to be over, and, much like US manufacturing, there appears the mini cycle. Markit PMI for Germany: Both the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment and IFO Business Climate Surveys disappointed expectations, as sentiment in Germany looks to have passed an inflection and rolled over again in sympathy with manufacturing. For .. read more
QE 3 & Home Sales
December sales of new homes was disappointing in that the adjusted pace did not keep up with previous months. From May 2012 through October 2012, year-over-year increases in new sales levels stayed consistently above 20%. That drove expectations that the trend in residential real estate had finally turned. Given available data, that does seem to .. read more
Employment & Revisions
The headline in the Establishment survey was quite a bit better than expected, but once again it was at odds with most of the rest of the employment report. The Household survey fell by 122,000 reported jobs, while 350,000 people left the labor force. The number of estimated persons not in the labor force rose .. read more
Personal Income, GDP Revisions & Bad Benchmarks
My theme for 2012 has been that something is different this year than the past two years of even substandard recovery. Recession looms and recent data has done nothing to make me think that trend is anything but hardening. While there was some celebration over the first revision to Q3 GDP, as headline growth was .. read more
Weekly Economic and Market Review
I spend a lot of time reading the economic tea leaves. Given my well known distrust of politicians and government, it is a bit of ironic that I spend so much time poring over the details of government produced reports but there really is little choice. I also look at privately produced reports such as .. read more
Weekly Economic and Market Review
The economic data last week continued to show strength but there were hints of a softening in a few reports which the bears seized on to make their case. For now, I don’t think the data supports the idea of a double dip recession but there are plenty of people who want to believe it so .. read more
Economic Report: Personal Income/Spending
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis and its monthly report on Personal Income and Outlays, in the past few months, US consumers have cut back on big-ticket purchases and expenses and started saving for a change. After adjusting for a 0.5% decline in prices, real consumer spending decreased 0.5% for the month of December, following a 0.3% gain .. read more
