It wasn’t exactly a secret, though the raw data doesn’t ever tell you why something might’ve changed in it. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, confirmed by industry sources, US new car sales absolutely tanked in May 2022. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 12.7 million, it was a quarter fewer than sales put down in May 2021 and [...]
Inevitable adjective incapable of being avoided or evaded I heard that word a lot last week. There is now a fully formed consensus that the US, and indeed the world, now faces an inevitable recession. It can't be avoided. Central banks will have to keep hiking rates because that's the only way to kill inflation. Yes, the inflation is due [...]
Yesterday’s market “volatility” spilled (way) over into this morning’s trading. It ended up being a very striking example, perhaps the clearest and most alarming yet, of a scramble for collateral. The 4-week T-bill, well, the chart speaks for itself:During past scrambles, such as those last year, they didn’t look like this. They would hit, stick around for an hour, maybe [...]
A tale of two retail industries. In the one, the well-known chip problem holding back what is already a monstrously robust (if artificial) sales environment. Automobile dealer lots are nearing empty and carmakers are unable (perhaps unwilling, too?) to produce near sufficient volumes to keep up let alone restock.This view of the situation, though, has clouded perspectives particularly as they [...]
If central banks are now almost exclusively on the defensive, we have no shortage of anecdotes and data to explain it. For a good long while economists and commentary managed to keep the US safely “decoupled” from the “overseas” maelstrom, but the deluge locally has become far too much to ignore. This is far, far deeper than just some indistinct [...]
The problem with a high rate of inventory build is that it eventually has to go somewhere. In an actual economic “boom” that isn’t much of a concern as businesses remain relatively confident that even if inventory is high in one month it will be easily disposed, profitably, in the next. That is the dominant narrative that seems to be [...]
WalMart finally broke its losing streak in same store comparable sales. Beating expectations, US comps rose 0.5% vs. the same 13 weeks in 2013. That must mean the consumer is resilient once more? While there is certainly no scale in the positive figure for Q3 (the 13 weeks ended October 31) the trend seems to be moving in the “right” [...]
Economists and policymakers continue to count on a second quarter surge in economic activity to ignite momentum for the rest of the year. The first revision to Q2 GDP comes on Thursday, so that will be the first test of the thesis. Given the inordinate volatility in the data set GDP could conceivably amount to almost anything at this point. [...]
With retail sales this week bringing an “unexpected” shock to those forecasting a robust economic rebound (outside of inventory, anyway) in the US, further confirmation has been offered pretty much everywhere else. WalMart’s quarterly report was as it has been since the end of 2012 with continuing slow erosion. US same store comparables were flat, which is something of an [...]
Whether intentional or not, we are living through a great experimentation in economic theory. It is believed that recessions are nothing more than depressed psychology, so much so that an extension of that theory posits that an intense and widespread counter-effort may in fact allow for their elimination. If I tell you, as someone in position of “economic” authority, that [...]
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