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Retail Sales Confirm Dark Black Friday

By |2014-12-11T12:56:46-05:00December 11th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The initial indications from private retail metrics on the Black Friday kickoff were not good, though numerous attempts to downplay those results were initiated. The monthly retail sales figures from the Census Bureau will make that much harder as they square with the downbeat Black Friday estimates. In other words, Black Friday wasn’t “off” because consumers were “pulled” to shop [...]

No ‘Surprise’, PBOC Has Been Saying This All Along

By |2014-12-09T10:41:56-05:00December 9th, 2014|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For months now, really going back to the summer, the obvious decline in Chinese economic function has produced a resounding expectation that the PBOC would come to the rescue. It was taken axiomatically such was this Pavlovian reflex. Everything the PBOC did over the summer was characterized in that context: the introduction of the PSL and its implementation largely with [...]

Economists Don’t Even Know What Prosperity Is

By |2014-12-08T10:58:37-05:00December 8th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Like the initial or preliminary GDP report in Japan for Q3, the first revision caught almost every economist totally the wrong way. Expectations were for upward re-figuring which should have been taken as a contrarian signal. And sure enough, December’s revisions to Q3 GDP were in the opposite direction as expected, and for all the reasons that economists are “experts” [...]

Tough For All That Holiday Online Shopping When Nobody Will (Or Can’t) Use Their Credit Cards

By |2014-12-05T18:19:24-05:00December 5th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

If you don’t have much by way of income growth, then there are other less desirable options for spending sources. There are “entitlements” or transfers and then there is debt. In the current age, the federal government has been responsible for originating and disbursing the vast majority of consumer credit in the form of student loans, in what is really [...]

A Matter, It Seems, Of Faith

By |2014-12-05T17:11:13-05:00December 5th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The juxtaposition could not be more fitting with all that is transpiring at this moment in economic history. On Monday, the headlines were filled with, Black Friday Fizzles as Sales Tumble 11% and ‘Black Friday’ Fades as Weekend Retail Sinks 11%. Then the “employment” report comes out and now the headlines are, More Jobs and Higher Wages: U.S. Recovery Starts [...]

Draghi Knows The Truth, ‘Last Bullet’ Better As Threat

By |2014-12-04T10:36:52-05:00December 4th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

If “investors” have notoriously short attention spans, then surely those in and of Europe are making a case to be classified as something entirely new, different, and worse. It is now just one day shy of six months ago that the latest central bank schematic was unleashed to the universal cheer of “markets” and economists alike. The ECB wasn’t fooling [...]

These Are Also Warnings

By |2014-12-02T16:30:01-05:00December 2nd, 2014|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Back at the end of August, it was becoming clear that there was a growing sense of maybe not distrust but far less blind faith emanating from credit markets all over the world. Without a single epicenter it has been far more difficult to simply side step all economic permutations as singularly important, rather the culmination of increasing worry is [...]

These Are Warnings

By |2014-12-02T12:32:38-05:00December 2nd, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Like economic accounts, corroboration is imperative in “market” signals as well. That is true not just because some of these indications are self-referential but because broad agreement across various segments precludes idiosyncratic explanations and factors. If everything, or nearly so, is moving in the same direction at the same time to the same magnitude you simply cannot ignore it. In [...]

Spending Follows Income, Or Why The Economy Really Isn’t Much Better

By |2014-12-01T17:07:07-05:00December 1st, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

I’m not sure what basis there is for expecting a robust holiday season. Even factoring the move in the unemployment rate and upward revisions to GDP in the past two quarters, none of that has done anything toward correlating with rising income. In fact, 2014 is conspicuous in that aspect more than at any time during this “recovery.” The latest [...]

Black Friday Much Worse Than Last Year, So Economy Must Be Much Better?

By |2014-12-01T12:36:23-05:00December 1st, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

There is an undoubted shift in the behavior of consumers, including and especially during the peak retail season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, to say that is the sole reason for the decline in actual sales volume is to stretch that truth into (in many cases intentional) utter misdirection. The initial indications from the retail outlets are so far beyond [...]

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