While the orthodoxy continues to try to reassure everyone that the economy is still moving to plan, revised innumerably over the years imperceptible as progress has been, there are signs that even mainstream outlets are at least starting to question whether or not that is actually preferable. Not a lot of dots are connected yet, and certainly not from A [...]
It wasn’t earth-shattering news to the broader stock market, but shareholders in ConAgra certainly took notice. The latest quarterly update, in anticipation of full quarterly earnings in a few days, was pretty bad. The packaged food company, that also processes and mills foodstuffs, “shocked” investors with both very weak results and an unanticipated writedown of goodwill. ConAgra has been on [...]
There was more bad news for real estate recently beyond the consistent declines in housing stats. The one factor that housing bulls have been awaiting is household formation, though so far that one has remained a drag. And that was supposed to be the catalyst, in that eventually Americans had to begin moving out once more. After so many years [...]
In advance of another rash of housing statistics, one of the main components driving more optimistic expectations is household formation. After being severely depressed by the Great Recession and then the lack of real recovery, at some point population dynamics should begin to drive actual demand for owning shelter. Of course, it seems like a good part of the construction [...]
As with Staples, McDonald’s poses the possibility of a competitive aspect to its latest results. February same store sales were down 1.4% in the US leading to a negative 0.3% comp for global same store sales. That followed January where US comparable sales were off 3.3%. Yet again we hear the excuses follow close behind, where weather and “challenging industry [...]
I have been pointed toward an alternate explanation for what I described as Japan’s potential tipping point. Scott Sumner (and others) is arguing that the tremendous increase in importation of goods into Japan is a sign Abenomics is actually working. His reasons relate to the orthodox idea of a “demand shock”, ostensibly how he classifies the yen devaluation, triggering what amounts [...]
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