April 2, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Not terrible news from today's report on durables. But nothing especially good either. New orders for durable goods fell 1.6% in February. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected a 0.9% decline. The big damage was done by a 4.8% drop in transportation...
April 1, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Remember last week when bond prices soared and yields plunged as everybody yelled "Recession" and fled to safety? Well, this week has started with a reversal of that sentiment on: A tick higher in manufacturing prospects in China. The official Manufacturing Purchasing...
March 28, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
On the one hand, the revision that takes fourth quarter U.S. GDP growth down to 2.2% from a previous estimate of 2.6% feeds right into financial market fears about a slowing economy and a looming recession. On the other hand, it looks like the financial markets...
March 21, 2019 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Let's remind ourselves of exactly how big a policy u-turn the Federal Reserve has steered in the last three months. In December the Fed was looking at 2 interest rate increases in 2019 and an announcement of an end to its balance sheet run off by, maybe, September. In...
March 18, 2019 | Daily JAM |
According to a Bloomberg survey of 32 economists, the Federal Reserve will remain on hold until September. Then it will raise interest rates one final time. And that will bring an end of the recent cycle of interest rate increases. The financial markets beg to differ....
March 11, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Headline retail sales rose 0.2% in January, the Census Bureau reported this morning. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting a 0.1% drop for the month. Retail sales excluding autos rose 0.9% for the month against a consensus projection of a 0.2% gain. Motor...
March 8, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The U.S. economy added only 20,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported this morning. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected 173,000 jobs for the month. In January the economy added 304,000 jobs. The huge swing left economists and Wall Street...
March 1, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The Institute for Supply Management Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing fell to 54.2 in February from 56.6 in January. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were looking for 56 on the index. (On this index anything above 50 signals expansion in the sector; below...
February 19, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Remember last week when the Commerce Department released figures showing that U.S. retail sales fell 1.2% in December from the previous month, the most since 2009. The drop was so big that she Wall Street analysts argued that the data were in error. Today Wal-Mart...
February 14, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Overall retail sales fell 1.2% in December from November, according to the Commerce Department. That's the worst drop in nine years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected a 0.1% gain in retail sales. Out of the gate stocks fell today on the news with the...
February 12, 2019 | Daily JAM |
Those of us trying to figure out not whether the U.S. economy is slowing but how big the slowdown will be are latching on to any data point. This one seems more important than many: Auto loans delinquent more than 90 days rose to 4.47% of total loans in the fourth...
February 5, 2019 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. service sector--which accounts for about 90% of U.S. economic activity--slowed in January, according to the Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index. The non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers Survey showed the index slipping to 56.7 in...
