Author Archive
Durable goods orders, Inventories, Trade, Consumer charge offs, Euro lending
Uncategorized
Jul 27, 2017
The theme of today’s data seems to be higher q2 gdp than otherwise, but for the wrong reason- over production- as spending weakened and unwanted inventories rose. Nice headline number for durable goods orders but most of the gain was in civilian aircraft which happens every year about this time. However, as
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New home sales, CAB, house prices
Uncategorized
Jul 26, 2017
New homes aren’t built without permits, which have flattened as well, and are therefore not adding as much to growth: Highlights New home sales are steady near the best levels of the expansion, at a 610,000 annualized rate in June. The 3-month average is 597,000 which is, however, noticeably below the first-quarter
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Consumer confidence, Euro zone comments
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Jul 25, 2017
Consumer confidence (soft data) up for the month but retail sales (hard data) continue to decelerate: No one talking about how this reduced what would have been private sector income and net financial assets by exactly that much, as the savings on interest was not spent by the governments but instead went
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Existing home sales, Services pmi
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Jul 24, 2017
Mirrors the deceleration in mortgage lending: Highlights The slip in pending home sales was no false signal as existing home sales fell 1.8 percent in June to a lower-than-expected annualized rate of 5.520 million. Year-on-year, sales are still in the plus column but not by much, at 0.7 percent which is the
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Credit check, Venezuela, US petro reserve sale, Spicer resigns
Uncategorized
Jul 21, 2017
No relief here. Just a question of what this is reflecting: Someone robbing the cookie jar? No comment. Just hoping it doesn’t happen: Wheels coming off:
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Philly Fed, Bloomberg consumer comfort index, Housing permits, Jobless claims, Euro comments, Trump comment
Uncategorized
Jul 20, 2017
Trumped up expectations as reflected in the various surveys continue to fade, and fall in line with the decelerating ‘hard data’: Highlights There finally may be cracks appearing in Philly Fed which has, since the election, been signaling break-out strength for the Mid-Atlantic manufacturing sector. The general conditions index looks solid at
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Housing starts, Consumer spending chart
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Jul 19, 2017
Better than expected, but not enough to reverse this year’s downtrend, as per the chart, and housing is adding less to q2 gdp than it did to q1 gdp: Highlights Housing data have been up and down and are now back up as both housing starts and permits easily beat Econoday’s top
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Housing index, Bank lending
Uncategorized
Jul 18, 2017
Trumped up expectations have now entirely faded and the general weakening of housing data is in line with the deceleration of bank mortgage lending: Highlights Home builders are less exuberant as the housing market index fell to a weaker-than-expected 64 in July. This is the lowest reading since November last year. The
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NY mfg survey, Total vehicle sales
Uncategorized
Jul 17, 2017
Settling down a bit: Highlights A little less strength is probably welcome in the New York Fed’s manufacturing sample where gains at times have been unsustainable. The Empire State index came in at 9.8 in July vs Econoday’s consensus for 15.0 and against June’s very hot 19.8. New orders are strong at
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Credit check, Atlanta Fed
Uncategorized
Jul 16, 2017
Still decelerating, and data releases seem to confirm that the credit deceleration is reflecting something similar in the macro economy: Annual growth is down to about 1.5%: This would have been maybe $500 billion higher if it had not decelerated: Housing and cars contribution to growth also looking a lot lower than
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