Tag Archives: inflation

More deflation news here: PPI-FD Nothing good here, and of course sales = income, so lower sales = lower incomes. Also, the boost to prior months from car sales looks like it’s fading: Retail SalesHighlightsRetail sales slowed in October but fundamentally remain solid. Sales rose only 0.1 percent, 2 tenths under the Econoday consensus. But when excluding vehicles, which slipped back after surging in prior months, and when also excluding gasoline stations, where sales once again fell on...

Along with most indicators, this one turned south as oil capex collapsed: Update: Framing Lumber Prices down Sharply Year-over-year Here is another graph on framing lumber prices. Early in 2013 lumber prices came close to the housing bubble highs.The price increases in early 2013 were due to a surge in demand (more housing starts) and supply constraints (framing lumber suppliers were working to bring more capacity online).Prices didn’t increase as much early in 2014 (more supply, smaller...

My understanding is that this series includes premiums paid for health insurance and so GDP has gotten a one time boost from from the newly insured who are now paying insurance premiums via the affordable care act. So Q4 should see another reduction and growth and a lower contribution to GDP growth:This kind of personal consumption collapsed with the collapse in oil prices and oil capex: This is for September, and is slowing as previously discussed after permits peaked in June with the...

Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found. Perhaps searching will help. Search for:

CPI, Empire State Survey, Philly Fed, Brent Crude Price, Previous Banking Post Consumer Price IndexEmpire State Mfg Survey HighlightsMinus signs sweep the Empire State report with the headline at minus 11.36 which is more than 1 point below Econoday’s low end estimate. Looking at individual readings, new orders are in very deep trouble at minus 18.92 for a fifth straight month of contraction. And manufacturers in the region are not going to be able to turn to unfilled orders to keep busy...

Exports down but so are imports, indicating a weak global economy and continued euro support from trade net flows: Germany : Merchandise Trade German exports plunge at fastest pace since global financial crisis Oct 8 (Reuters) — German exports plunged in August. Data from the Federal Statistics Office showed seasonally-adjusted exports sliding by 5.2 percent to 97.7 billion euros month-on-month, the steepest drop since January 2009. Imports tumbled by 3.1 percent to 78.2 billion...

In-depth analysis on Credit Writedowns Pro. Editor’s note: This was originally published by Absolute Return Partners in late August. So we are a little late in releasing it. Apologies. It is still good reading. The Absolute Return Letter, August/September 2015: Doodles from an eventful summer “There is something deeply troubling when the unthinkable threatens to become routine.” Bank for International Settlements Incidents of the summer 2015 This month’s Absolute Return Letter is a...

Richard Clarida gave an interview (right at the beginning of the podcast) on why the Fed should increase the rate of interest. He also said that the Fed can affect inflation, which, he correctly points out, is denied by several economists. However, the degree of confusion on this subject is significant, and modern monetary theory, and its implications for central banking behavior, is, in part, responsible for that.The conventional wisdom on what central banks can do (and one can think of...

When a former Bank of England deputy governor gives a presentation entitled "Are Low Interest Rates Natural?" to a extraordinarily high-powered audience of academics and monetary policymakers, you can bet he will come up with some great charts. Charlie Bean's historical analysis of long-term real and nominal yields in the UK is amazing: It is very evident that for most of the last 200 years, nominal and real consol yields have been pretty much pinned together. Charlie said that the gold...

I have repeatedly said that I do not support Jeremy Corbyn's "People's QE". But there seems to be considerable confusion about what exactly I oppose. And that is for one simple reason: the deliberate conflation of government investment spending and QE by the architect of this scheme. PQE is composed of two separate and distinct strands: 1. Government spending to finance investment in infrastructure, innovation, R&D and housing 2. Bank of England purchases of government bonds. ...