December Durable Goods Were Weak The headline number for seasonally adjusted, nominal durable goods orders fell 4.3% in December. That was worse than the lowest…
Consumer Confidence Rose, Beating Market Expectations The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence measure beat market expectations today. The headline number of 80.7 beat the consensus guess…
New Home Sales Worse Than Usual For December New home sales in the US in December were an unqualified disaster. The headline number came in…
Home prices are still rising according to the latest NAR data showing a monthly gain of 1.3% and 9.9% year to year increase in December. That’s consistent…
The headline seasonally finagled number for initial unemployment claims was in line with Wall Street consensus. Given the vagaries of the seasonal manipulation process and…
Retail sales for December rose 0.2% according to the headlines, beating the market consensus of a flat month. As usual, the headline number was a…
The jobs data trend remains a disaster for the American people. I have previously shown how the headline number for non farm payrolls overstated the weakness in…
The non farm payrolls headline number has grossly overstated the weakness in December jobs growth. The reported (fictional, seasonally adjusted) gain of 74,000 jobs in December compared…
First time unemployment claims for the first week of January are now lower than any first week of the year since 2007 as the housing/credit…
Banks are apparently getting out of the business of trading pretty much everything except Treasuries thanks to the Volcker rule. Perhaps the story may be…
