Monthly Archives: February 2012
Ben Tries to Deflect Election-Year Politics
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke provided his Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services. There was little new information in the actual testimony, with Bernanke defending the Fed’s current monetary policy because of the unevenness of the recovery, ongoing weakness in housing and persistence of high unemployment.
GDP Revisions: More Consumer Spending, Shifts in Public Sector
Real GDP rose a revised 3.0% in the last quarter of 2011, the strongest pace in a year. More spending and investment were found primarily in the consumer and residential real estate sectors. This reflects both an increase in employment and some drawdown in savings for the period. We also saw unseasonably mild, winter weather [...]
Confidence Picks Up, Despite Fuel Costs
The Conference Board Index of Consumer Confidence rose to 70.8 in February, reversing a decline in January. Optimism over job prospects, also seen in the University of Michigan’s sentiment survey, more than offsets the pessimism associated with higher prices at the pump. This could be a ray of hope for those who have been standing [...]
Durable Goods Orders Drop on Volatile Aircraft Orders
Durable goods orders fell 4.0% between December and January, mostly due to weakness in transportation. Non-defense aircraft and parts posted the largest declines after two months of strong increases. Declines, however, were more broad-based than we would like to see, with a drop in machinery orders as well. Vehicle orders edged up a slight 0.9%, [...]
Upside Surprise on New Home Sales, Slight Rise in Sentiment.
New home sales slipped to a 321,000 unit rate in January, but surpassed expectations for 315,000. Although those figures are still a far cry from the 700,000 plus we should be seeing, this many years into a recovery, they are nonetheless encouraging. They followed upward revisions to the end of 2011, which showed that the [...]
Investors Spur Home Sales in January
Existing home sales rose to a 4.57 million unit rate in January, up 4.3% in January but were revised to show a decline, instead of an increase, in December. (This has been an ongoing problem with the realtors’ data.) Distressed sales made up 35% of sales, with gains concentrated in the West, where a number [...]
Trends in Consumer Credit
The most recent consumer credit report ended 2011 on a high note. The release covered the figures for the month of December. Both revolving & non-revolving credit posted gains on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis. Revolving credit (such as credit cards) grew by $2.8 billion, while the non-revolving component (fixed-payment loans including auto and education [...]
Consumer Price Index Moderates on Energy Usage
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.2% in the month of January, less than expected. Core inflation, however, was a little hotter than expected, with gains in the goods sector significantly higher than gains in the services sector; the only major exceptions were utilities and used cars, which fell precipitously. Household energy costs declined,
Greece: No End to the Disappointment
The painful, protracted, never-ending Greek drama has already done plenty of economic and financial damage to Greece and Europe; it may be about to escalate into a new, unpredictable level of political damage. It was ill-advised for a German minister to suggest that a Greek election should be postponed and that instead, a caretaker government [...]
Economic Data up on Lower Energy Prices, Better January Weather
Jobless claims continued to trend down from 361,000 to 348,000 in the most recent week, the lowest level since 2008. One of the largest movements in recent weeks has been a reduction in the number of public sector workers applying for unemployment insurance, which is showing up as less of a headwind in the payroll [...]
Bloomberg asks Diane Swonk to explain Fed concern over unemployment
RSS Feeds