Category: US Economy
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
U.S. Employment, the Economy & Interest Rates / Economics / US Economy
By: Gary_Tanashian
The February Employment report was a strong +295,000 with unemployment dropping to 5.5%. In Friday's Market Notes update we highlighted that per BLS this was a services-driven report as the leading edge of the economy, the smaller but key manufacturing and industrial sectors, have begun to decelerate (notably in forward-looking 'New Orders').
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
U.S. Real Estate Economy Too Many Houses, Not Enough Jobs / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Rubino
Today’s existing home sales report was down another 4.9% to an annual rate of 4.82 million units, the lowest in nearly a year. And this, remember, is in the sixth year of a recovery with reported unemployment below 6% and the Fed preparing to raise interest rates to head off incipient overheating.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
What Uber Could Teach the American Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
When I travel around the country, one of the questions that comes up often in conversation is, where will the jobs of the future come from? I have a stock answer that I glibly offer:
In 1980, the Japanese were beating our brains out. Inflation was well into the double digits, as was unemployment. Finding a job was hard (I know), as one industry after another was being reconfigured and jobs seemed to be disappearing left and right. The answer to the question “Where will the jobs come from?” back then was “I don’t know, but they will.”
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Thursday, February 12, 2015
Deflation, Interest Rates and Currency Wars / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Forecasting is a singularly difficult task and is more often than not fraught with failure. The Federal Reserve has some of the smartest economists in the world, and yet their forecasts are so wrong so often (as in, they almost never get it right) that some have pointed out that it’s almost statistically impossible to be as bad as the Fed. Yet they continue to issue such forecasts and to base economic and monetary policy on them. Go figure.
Their forecasts, like most economic predictions, are based on past performance. Intricate economic models look at history to try to determine the future relationships among economic determinants. I really shouldn’t pick on the Fed so much as point out that almost all of us in the forecasting business have dismal track records. The world has grown so complex that it is singularly difficult to understand the interrelationships of the million-odd factors that determine the outcome of an economy.
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Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Fed's Powell Sees Slack in U.S. Economy, Inflation Too Low and Following Greece Events Carefully / Economics / US Economy
By: Bloomberg
Federal Reserve Governor Jay Powell spoke with Bloomberg's Peter Cook following his speech at Catholic University today. Powell said that low inflation gives the central bank time to remain patient as it considers when to raise interest rates. He said, "There's plenty of slack out there in the economy" and that "wages do not suggest any tightness in the labor market."
PETER COOK, BLOOMBERG NEWS: I am joined by Governor Jay Powell. Thank you for the time, rare opportunity for us to have a chance to chat with you. I want to ask you first of all about your speech today. You made a pretty strong argument against audit the Fed, the push that we're seeing right now in Congress. The fact that you're making this speech at all tells me that you and your colleagues at the Fed see this as a real threat right now.
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Monday, February 09, 2015
The Financialized Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Gary_Tanashian
Does the US Economy and Stock Market Need Manufacturing?
The ISM PMI reports for December and January showed deceleration in line with our view that a persistently strong US dollar would begin to eat away at US manufacturing, exporters and other companies that depend on significant foreign business. But in an age where investors will bid up Twitter* (with its forward P/E of 141 and 30B market cap to 1.2B revenue) by 16% in a day, are we returning to the old days of ‘PE’s don’t matter’ with the hook or tout being ‘it’s all about ad revenue’?
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Monday, January 05, 2015
Why the World Needs the US Economy to Struggle in 2015 / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
The headlines this morning talk about the US dollar hitting an 11-year high. I have been saying for years that the dollar is going to go higher than anyone can imagine. This trade is just in the early innings. And the repercussions will be dramatic, not only for emerging markets that have financed projects in dollars, but also for commodities and energy, gold, and a variety of other investments. The world is at the doorstep of a new era of volatility and currency wars.
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
The Truth Behind U.S. 5% GDP Economic Growth / Economics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Sit down before you read this.
It's going to make your head spin and, worse, change the way you think about what's real in America.
Christmas came early this year, for the market that is, by way of a gift from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
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Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Will Cheap Crude Oil Bail Out the Consumer? / Economics / US Economy
By: Michael_Pento
Analysts on every financial news network are screaming about how the lower oil and gas prices will spur on the U.S. consumer and lead to a stronger economy. It is true that total retail sales rose 0.7 percent in November, beating analysts' expectations of 0.4 percent. And the Thomson-Reuters University of Michigan survey of consumers saw its December 2014 "preliminary index of consumer sentiment" soaring to 93.8--well above last month's 88.8 reading. Yet, despite this, global markets are throwing off many deflationary signals that should not be ignored.
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Saturday, December 27, 2014
What’s Really Going on Inside the Latest GDP Number / Economics / US Economy
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Sit down before you read this.
It’s going to make your head spin and, worse, change the way you think about what’s real in America.
Christmas came early this year, for the market that is, by way of a gift from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
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Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Crude Oil, US GDP - You Thought The Saudis Were Kidding? / Economics / US Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
There are many things I don’t understand these days, and some are undoubtedly due to the limits of my brain power. But at the same time some are not. I’m the kind of person who can no longer believe that anyone would get excited over a 5% American GDP growth number. Not even with any other details thrown in, just simply a print like that. It’s so completely out of left field and out of proportion that you would think by now at least a few more people understand what’s really going on.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
U.S. Economic GDP Growth Revised Higher to 5% / Economics / US Economy
By: CMI
In their third estimate of the US GDP for the third quarter of 2014, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the economy was growing at an astounding +4.96% annualized rate, up an additional +1.07% from their prior estimate for the 3rd quarter and now up +0.37% from the already very healthy 4.59% annualized growth rate registered during the second quarter.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Crude Oil Price Crash, U.S. Employment and Economic Growth / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
Last week we started a series of letters on the topics I think we need to research in depth as we try to peer into the future and think about how 2015 will unfold. In forecasting US growth, I wrote that we really need to understand the relationships between the boom in energy production on the one hand and employment and overall growth in the US on the other. The old saw that falling oil prices are like a tax cut and are thus a net benefit to the US economy and consumers is not altogether clear to me. I certainly hope the net effect will be positive, but hope is not a realistic basis for a forecast. Let’s go back to two paragraphs I wrote last week:
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
U.S. Economy Post-‘Jobs’ Report; Real or Memorex? / Economics / US Economy
By: Gary_Tanashian
Now it gets interesting because early in the bailout process the Fed talked about achieving certain employment milestones before hiking interest rates. Here we are at the 10th consecutive month with 200,000+ job gains (321,000 in November) and the jobless rate down to 5.8% and still there is a question on when or whether ZIRP will be withdrawn?
Saturday, December 06, 2014
Why the US Economy Is Temporarily Outperforming, In Two Charts / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Rubino
Today’s US employment report was the best in years. 300,000+ new jobs, rising wages, fewer people dropping out of the workforce, the whole package. Very hopeful. And also curious, since the rest of the world seems to be moving in the other direction. Consider:
Thursday, November 27, 2014
The Price Of Oil Exposes The True State Of The Economy / Economics / US Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
We should be glad the price of oil has fallen the way it has (losing another 6% today as I write this). Not because it makes the gas in our cars a bit cheaper, that’s nothing compared to the other service the price slump provides. That is, it allows us to see how the economy is really doing, without the multilayered veil of propaganda, spin, fixed data and bailouts and handouts for the banking system.
It shows us the huge extent to which consumer spending is falling, how much poorer people have become as stock markets set records. It also shows us how desperate producing nations have become, who have seen a third of their often principal source of revenue fall away in a few months’ time. Nigeria was first in line to devalue its currency, others will follow suit.
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Wednesday, November 19, 2014
The U.S. Economy’s Ebb and Flow / Economics / US Economy
By: Harry_Dent
Paul Krugman recently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about the exit of Bill Gross from Pimco and why that happened because he didn’t understand that we’re in a deflationary or depression-like economy. He kept betting on interest rates rising on a lag from money printing or quantitative easing (QE) but that never happened and his massive bond fund suffered.
I don’t agree with Paul Krugman about too many things, but I do agree with one of his major points in that article.
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Saturday, November 01, 2014
The Most Important U.S. Economic Charts You'll See / Economics / US Economy
By: DailyWealth
David Eifrig writes: The market is crashing... Ebola is running rampant... Look out for cloaked and bearded ISIS warriors.
You can always find a lot of fear-mongering in the news and in financial markets. Right now, it appears to be a particularly worrisome time.
Most of it is nonsense...
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Tuesday, October 28, 2014
U.S. Economic Snapshot - Strong Dollar Eating into corporate Profits / Economics / US Economy
By: Gary_Tanashian
Our view has been that a stronger US dollar would eventually start to eat away at corporate results, especially in the manufacturing sector and at US based companies with a global customer base. The decline in revenues thus far is something to be watched because where revenues go, earnings eventually follow.
[edit: the segment previous to this one reviewed a contrast between strong earnings and sagging revenues with companies that have reported earnings thus far]
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Thursday, October 23, 2014
U.S. Economy Faltering Momentum, Debt and Asset Bubbles / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Mauldin
I featured the thinking of Dr. Lacy Hunt on the velocity of money and its relationship to developed-world overindebtedness and the potential for deflation in this week’s Thoughts from the Frontline, and I thought you’d like to peruse Lacy’s entire recent piece on the subject.
Lacy takes the US, Europe, and Japan one by one, examining the velocity of money (V) in each economy and bolstering the principle, first proposed by Irving Fisher in 1933, that V is critically influenced by the productivity of debt. Then, turning to the equation of exchange (M*V=Nominal GDP, where M is money supply), he demonstrates that we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised by sluggish global growth and had better be on the lookout for global deflation.
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