Saudi price hike, private payrolls, new hires, corporate profits

This could easily drive oil up past $200/barrel and trigger a serious recession. This survey/forecast is higher than precovid. The full employment report comes out Friday: Gross new hires have been trending lower: Corporate profits jumped after the covid dip and have recently flattened:

Retail sales, Consumer sentiment, NY manufacturing survey

Gone flat post covid, adjusted for inflation: The post covid slump continues, and now there are war disruptions: US Consumer Sentiment Lowest since 2011 The University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the US fell to 59.7 in March of 2022 from 62.8 in February, below market forecasts of 61.4, preliminary estimates showed. It is the […]

Employment, oil

Still slowly working its way back to the pre covid trend: New rigs continue to come online, but it won’t interfere with Saudi/Russian price setting until sufficient production comes online to reduce Saudi sales. And right now sales are going up, indicating that demand for oil at the Saudi’s prices is increasing, as the Saudis […]

CPI, commodity charts

Quite a few price increases, which the media now calls ‘inflation’ even though inflation is a continuous increase in the price level: The annual inflation rate in the US surged to 6.2% in October of 2021, the highest since November of 1990 and above forecasts of 5.8%. Upward pressure was broad-based, with energy costs recording […]

Consumer sentiment, oil prices, federal debt/GPD

Not looking good: Russians and Saudis now cooperating to set crude oil prices. Not good: Post covid fiscal contraction is underway and debt/gdp is forecast to fall a lot further. Most of the Federal assistance was the likes of unemployment benefits which have now expired and new spending programs from Congress seem to be not […]

Unemployment claims, employment, shipping costs, oil prices

Down a bit since Federal benefits expired. This materially cuts gov. spending: A lot worse than expected. They thought the end of Federal benefits would send people back to work. However, a cut in Federal spending cools down aggregate demand: Transitory comes to mind: Saudis and Russians are working together to set price. What could […]

Auto sales, Lumber, Rail loadings, Global survey, Profits comments, Las Vegas Real Estate, Central Banks buying gold

This has been know to be associated with the housing cycle: Framing Lumber Prices Down 30% Year-over-year This has taken a dive recently: Global economy enters ‘synchronised slowdown’ (F) The global economy has entered a “synchronised slowdown” which may be difficult to reverse in 2019, according to the latest update of a tracking index compiled […]

Euro area PMI, Japan pmi, Misc. global headlines

Tariff man, aka Agent Orange, doing a number on global economies… Just went negative: Services moved up some but the trend still looks down: Japan appearing to be collapsing as well: And these recent headlines: Argentina Leading Economic Index The economy of Argentina shrank 0.1 percent month-over-month in January 2019, following a 0.3 percent contraction […]

Retail sales, Home buying index, Auto index, Summit statements

Mixed bag again, as auto sales contributions are volatile in a generally softening auto market. And the Fed estimates the tax cuts and spending increases will add about .4-.5% to GDP this year. Also, the spending numbers are not inflation adjusted, and year over year cpi has been moving higher: Highlights Strong gains for the […]