Monthly Archives: April 2008

2008-04-10 US Economic Releases

Posted on by

2008-04-10 Trade Balance

Trade Balance (Feb)

2008-04-10 Trade Balance TABLE

Trade Balance TABLE

Survey -$57.5B
Actual -$62.3B
Prior -$58.2B
Revised -$59.0B

Exports still accelerating- up 2% over last month, a 26%+ annual rate, and 20.8% year over year.

Looks like an anomaly with imports, up 3.1% month over month and petroleum imports down. Very odd for non petroleum imports to be up – look for adjustments with next month’s number.

While this February number means Q1 GDP will be revised lower, the March report is likely to more than reverse this.

2008-04-10 Initial Jobless Claims since 1998

Initial Jobless Claims (Apr 5)

Survey 383K
Actual 357K
Prior 407K
Revised 410K

Back down but 4 week moving average still inching up some.

Not at recession levels yet.

2008-04-10 Continuing Claims since 1998

Continuing Claims (Mar 29)

Survey 2935K
Actual 2840K
Prior 2937K
Revised n/a

This lags a week. It has moved up over the last year, but still far from previous recession levels.

2008-04-10 ICSC Chaing Stores Sales YoY

ICSC Chain Stores Sales YoY (Mar)

Survey 0.9%
Actual -0.5%
Prior 1.9%
Revised n/a

Consumer remained weak in March – that’s what an export economy looks like.

2008-04-10 Monthly Budget Statement

Monthly Budget Statement (Mar)

Survey -$70.0B
Actual -$48.1B
Prior -$96.3B
Revised n/a

2008-04-11 Monthly Budget Statement TABLE

Monthly Budget Statement TABLE

Share

WSJ: Taul Paul chimes in

Posted on by

The FOMC take this very seriously:


Volcker’s Demarche

On the dollar, Mr. Volcker’s blunt talk of crisis is a welcome tonic to the devaluationist consensus that now dominates Washington. The world has been staging a run on the greenback, with damaging results if it continues. Mr. Volcker noted that when “concerns about recession are rife,” the central bank will be tempted to “subordinate the fundamental need to maintain a reliable currency” to the impulse to shore up a flagging economy. The danger is that you lose both battles, as the U.S. did in the 1970s, and wind up with stagflation.

The present climate, Mr. Volcker told his audience, reminded him of nothing so much as the early 1970s. Then as now, certain commodity prices were rising fast – he cited oil and soybeans as two examples. Then as now too, these were explained away as speculative price run-ups and not as a harbinger of a broader inflationary trend.

We all know how that ended, and Mr. Volcker knows better than anyone. He was the one who, at the end of that decade, had to step in and raise interest rates to punitive levels to break the back of that bout of inflation. With commodity prices spiking again – soybeans are $12 a bushel today compared to $7 a year ago – Mr. Volcker is warning the Fed not to let inflationary expectations become embedded once again.

Share

Bloomberg: Exports booming

Posted on by

(Yes, I know, just anecdotal.)

Honeywell Wins $23 Billion Jet Award, Its Biggest, From Embraer

by Courtney Dentch

(Bloomberg) Honeywell International Inc. won its biggest business jet engine order, beating two rivals for a $23 billion contract from Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA.

Honeywell will build engines for two new Embraer planes over the next decade, the companies said after the close of U.S. stock markets yesterday. The contract is the Brazilian company’s first engine order with Morris Township, New Jersey-based Honeywell and includes repair parts and services.

Share

ABC personal finance subcomponent

Posted on by

2008-04-09 ABC News Washington Post US Weekly Personal Finance Index

ABC personal finance subcomponent

Down but not out.

Weakness, but probably no recession as per Bernanke’s latest address before Congress.

Inflation ripping, as Fed staff raises it’s near term forecast.

The Fed ‘fights inflation’ with ‘slack’.

The Fed waiting for slack to be reduced before turning its attention to inflation is illogical at best.

Without the much anticipated further decline in home prices the Fed will find itself that much further ‘behind the inflation curve’.

The Fed needs the housing decline for its models to forecast inflation returning to comfort zones.

Share

Re: Food prices (cont)

Posted on by

(a set of interoffice emails)

Sanjiv to me
9:10 AM Reply
See the riots in Haiti over food prices?

Mike to me
9:03 AM Reply
Much of it caused by financial intermediaries

YES, TO THE EXTENT THERE ARE EXCESS INVENTORIES.

BIOFUELS, TO THE EXTENT THE FOOD/ACREAGE HAS BEEN USED FOR FUEL

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 9:02 AM, Brian wrote:

Did you see the news in the Philippines last night? The government is going to start increasing wages to help people deal with rising food and energy costs. Interesting approach toward combating inflation.

Yes, the mainstream calls that ‘monetizing’ the price increases. Given a shortage, giving people more funds doesn’t add to supply in the short run, and, (twist on Keynes coming) when it comes to food shortages in the short run we’re all dead.

Share

Bloomberg: Egypt’s Soaring Food Prices Bring Bread Lines, Deficit Pressure

Posted on by

This is destabilizing and escalating.

Egypt’s Soaring Food Prices Bring Bread Lines, Deficit Pressure

By Abeer Allam and Daniel Williams

 

(Bloomberg) Atyat Musa Bakri, a Cairo mother of nine children, was waiting in line to buy subsidized bread for the third time in one day.

“The more cheap bread I can get, the better,” she said as a crowd of about 30 women jostled at a bakery in the Boulaq district. “The price of everything is going up and up, so I save on this. I spend all morning buying cheap bread.”

Bread is just about the only affordable food these days in Egypt, where rising commodity and energy prices have sent unsubsidized food prices up 20 percent or more in the past year. The rising cost of subsidies is damaging the government’s efforts to reduce its budget deficit.

About 500 political activists and textile workers at the Mahallah El-Kobra factory in northern Egypt were arrested and dozens were wounded in clashes with police on April 6 as the government clamped down on a one-day national strike to protest food inflation. In Mahallah itself, demonstrators threw stones at police phalanxes and set fire to trash.

The government-owned Egyptian Gazette newspaper said April 1 that seven people have died since the beginning of the year in brawls in bread lines.

Egyptian inflation accelerated to 12.1 percent in February, the fastest pace in 11 months, the Cairo-based Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics reported March 19. Food and beverage prices increased 16.8 percent, while non-subsidized bread and grain prices jumped 27 percent. Dairy products and eggs rose 20.1 percent.

Share

2008-04-09 US Economic Releases

Posted on by

2008-04-09 MBAVPRCH Index

MBAVPRCH Index (Apr 4)

Survey n/a
Actual 384.7
Prior 356.0
Revised n/a

If this is a recession, it’s not much of one, and housing is slowly bottoming and turning back up some.

2008-04-09 MBAVREFI Index

MBAVREFI Index (Apr 4)

Survey n/a
Actual 2724.7
Prior 2636.0
Revised n/a

The refi machine is far from dead.

2008-04-09 Wholesale Inventories

Wholesale Inventories

Survey 0.5%
Actual 1.1%
Prior 0.8%
Revised 1.0%

[comments]

Share

2008-04-08 US Economic Releases

Posted on by

COMMENTS TO COME!!

2008-04-08 Pending Home Sales MoM

Pending Home Sales MoM (Feb)

Survey -1.0%
Actual -1.9%
Prior 0.0%
Revised 0.3%

2008-04-08 Pending Home Sales Total SA

Pending Home Sales Total SA

Survey n/a
Actual 84.6
Prior 86.2
Revised n/a

Last month revised to actually being up a tad, but back down this month.

Not going anywhere as of February, but still a winter number.

IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism (Apr)

Survey 41.5
Actual 39.2
Prior 42.5
Revised n/a

2008-04-08 ABC Consumer Confidence

ABC Consumer Confidence (Apr 6)

Survey n/a
Actual -34
Prior -33
Revised n/a

Still looking to me as turning to the upside. A stable stock market should help a lot.

Share

Bloomberg: Russian Oil Fund Should Be Tapped for Pensions

Posted on by

While relatively small, investing in pensions vs. ‘spending’ reduces aggregate demand. And ‘liquidity’ for the banking sector can readily be increased independently of these funds as needed.

Russian Oil Fund Should Be Tapped for Pensions, Kudrin Says

by Maria Levitov and Alex Nicholson

(Bloomberg) Russia’s Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said the country’s oil fund should be used for financing pensions rather than boosting liquidity in the banking sector.

“The fund should not ensure liquidity. This is not its aim,” Kudrin said in Moscow today. Investing the $33 billion National Wellbeing Fund abroad and using returns to finance pensions is “the only correct way to use the National Wellbeing Fund,” he said. The government would always help to restore liquidity if this was required, he said.

Russia will eventually invest a small portion of the National Wellbeing Fund on the domestic market, once it becomes more stable and less dependent on oil prices, Kudrin said. Five percent of the fund may be invested in Russian securities “in the future” and that amount could gradually be increased he said.

The fund will not be invested in the Russian market this year, he said.

Share