Tag Archives: Taxes/regulation

Along with fourth quarter  GDP, corporate profits for the the fourth quarter was also reported.  Profits growth was either quite strong or very weak depending on how you looked at them.  On a year over year basis, after tax profits growth was 11% and appeared to be accelerating. However, on a quarter to quarter basis after tax profits actually fell -6.73% (SAAR) in the fourth quarter  and that is after a third quarter annual growth rate of only ...

Real personal income and spending sag Along with jobs and wages, household and personal income and spending are my main focus on how average Americans are doing in the economy. We’ll get the next jobs report a week from now, but today we got – almost updated to the present – January personal income and February personal spending. First of all, in my rubric of long leading, short leading, and coincident indicators, both of these are coincident. They tend...

The last long leading indicator, corporate profits, declined in Q4 2018 Three months after the quarter ended, corporate profits for Q4 of 2018 were reported this morning, and they were down slightly (-0.1%). Here’s the quote from the BEA: Corporate profits deflated by unit labor costs are a long leading indicator. Since these costs were already reported at +1.6% q/q, that means that adjusted corporate profits were down about the same percentage....

by New Deal democrat February housing data indicates slump not over UPDATED Housing data, in the form of February permits and starts, finally caught up after the government shutdown. Two sources of house price data were also released this morning. The bottom line is that, depending on how you measure, housing construction is likely either at or just slightly above a short term bottom. Price growth, meanwhile, continues to decelerate. I have a more...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 18 – 22 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. As you can imagine, the big news was about the fact that almost every single yield curve there is – except the one I report on every week in that post – inverted yesterday. Also, as I mentioned in an e-mail to a couple of folks this morning, the big thing that bothers me is that ***EVERYONE*** is watching it. And a forecasting tool...

No More Fed Rate Hikes in 2019… The fundamentals are “sound”?: PICTURE = 1000 WORDS

by New Deal democrat The widened Panama Canal is disrupting internal US transportation patterns The newly-widened Panama Canal opened to traffic in late 2016. Since then, there have been several ongoing disruptions in how goods are transported from suppliers in Asia to their ultimate markets in the US, including affects on seaports, trucking, and rail. This post is up at Seeking Alpha.  As usual, clicking over and reading should be educational for you,...

The government shutdown may have caused a mini-recession Aside from being a monumentally poor policy outcome, and aside from the hardship it caused nearly a million workers, the government shutdown may also have caused a general contraction in production, sales, and income, and a slowdown in employment, that if it were longer would qualify as a recession. Because the affected three months straddle Q4 2018 and Q1 2019, both quarters will likely show...

I just had an unusual experience. I was convinced by an op-ed. One third of the way through “Elizabeth Warren Actually Wants to Fix Capitalism” by David Leonhardt, I was planning to contest one of Leonhard’s assertions. Now I am convinced. The column praises Elisabeth Warren. Leonhardt (like his colleague Paul Krugman) is careful to refrain from declaring his intention to vote for her in the primary. I am planning to vote for her. I mostly agreed with...

Negative Nov. and Dec. revisions overwhelm positive January retail sales The initial spin on this morning’s delayed retail sales report for January has been positive, with for example the Wall Street Journal calling it a “rebound” and “a sign of solid economic momentum in the first quarter. Ummmmm, No. Both nominally and in real terms, retails sales did improve by +0.2% in January over December. The problem is, both November and December were revised...