Accompanying the final estimate for Q1 GDP is the first estimate for the corporate profits and cash flow components. Profits rebounded from a dismal Q4, but that actually means much less than it sounds especially in the more important segments. Corporate profits before tax (without IVA and CCadj) were an estimated $1.86 trillion in Q1, better than the $1.77 trillion [...]
There wasn’t anything new or surprising in the advance durable goods report. Shipments (ex transportation) were flat and orders were up 1% year-over-year (NSA). Capital goods (non-defense, ex aircraft) shipments fell 3.4%, the tenth straight month of contraction, while new orders were down again (2.6%) for the sixteenth time out of the past nineteen months. The slump only continues. With [...]
Near the start of her tenure, Janet Yellen in a speech given on April 16, 2014, at the Economic Club of New York declared monetary policy concerned with three big factors. The first was inflation and whether or not it was moving back to the 2% target, even though by then it had been almost two years since that was [...]
In February 1999, the Bank of Japan announced that its call money rate would be zero “until deflationary concerns subside.” Other than a temporary shift in 2001 and 2006, deflationary concerns remain. How effective was monetary policy? That point has been partially answered by the introduction of QE over and over and over again. The zero lower bound is to [...]
Looking back it almost sounds like a completely different world. In the end, however, the world hasn’t changed, perceptions have. On May 10, 2012, German newspaper Spiegel reported that Bundesbank’s (Germany’s central bank) chief of its economics department, Jens Ulbricht, testified in the German parliament that German inflation was likely to be, “somewhat above the average within in the European [...]
Industrial production fell year-over-year in May 2016 for the ninth consecutive month. At -1.4%, it is the same kind of slow, steady contraction now that we find in so many other places. This is not the typical recession response, instead more consistent with the slowdown turning into serious than just insufficient growth while still at the precipice of potential recession. [...]
Inventory is an exceedingly simple concept spaced between the most basic economic fundamentals. Because the modern economy operates upon mass production, the flow of goods is not direct. Thus, there are structural differences between demand and supply, with inventory as the pivot in between. If end demand rises it still gets filled even though production cannot respond instantaneously (no matter [...]
As with other economic accounts, retail sales dropped back in May after the temporary rebound coincident to calendar effects. Overall sales, including autos, grew just 1.9% over May 2015, well below the 3% level that historically defines recessionary conditions. That growth rate was the 39th worst in the entire data series (out of 281 months), placing it in the lower [...]
As always, there is the attempt to put a brave face on what is shaping up to be the worst year yet. China’s “big 3” economic data were all disappointing in the context of what the last “brave face” was supposed to suggest – where weakness at the start of the year was only due to “global turmoil” and would [...]
Economic Reports Scorecard Concern about recession is growing again as formerly strong portions of the economy turn down. The last two weeks brought reports of new weakness in the labor market, continued slowing in construction and renewed weakness in manufacturing. Auto sales were also weak based on the reports from individual manufacturers. The state of auto sales is frankly a [...]
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