I have annotated the press release’s key comments including the bold highlighting of certain sections. Press Release- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ST. LOUIS – Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bulltard discussed “The Aftermath of the Housing Bubble” on Tuesday during an event jointly hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing…
Tag Archive for Seasonal Adjustment Factors
Economics, Email Bulletins Archive, Housing, Lee's Free Thinking, Must Read
Builder Indexes Down In April, But Trend Is Still Up
by Lee Adler • • 0 Comments
The dark and dirty job of pointing out that the NAHB Housing Market Index present conditions index is up 11 points versus last April and traffic is up 5 points falls to me, I guess. The mainstream media and the NAHB itself has already widely reported only the bad news that April was down versus March…
Economics, Email Bulletins Archive, Lee's Free Thinking, Must Read
Interpreting The Head Scratching Unemployment Claims Data
by Lee Adler • • 4 Comments
Actual, not seasonally adjusted, initial unemployment claims totaled 319,349 last week, according to the Department of Labor tabulation of weekly data submitted to it by the 50 state employment departments. This number was virtually unchanged from the prior week total of 319,382. As always, the media reported only the seasonally manipulated numbers showing a decline…
Charts, Economics, Email Bulletins Archive
Unemployment Claims Data and Economists’ Exploding Brain Syndrome
by Lee Adler • • 0 Comments
With the mainstream media reporting the seasonally adjusted first time unemployment claims down by 6,000 it’s time for a reminder that this number is fake, and may or may not give an accurate representation of the trend. If it does, it’s purely a coincidence. Economists and financial journos are in love with the seasonally manipulated…
Housing, Liquidity Trader, Professional Edition
Pending Home Sales Cow Patties
by Lee Adler • • 2 Comments
Here’s what Bloomberg had to say about this morning’s reported jump in pending home sales (signed sales agreements). Pending sales of U.S. existing houses unexpectedly jumped by a record 10 percent in October, indicating the industry at the center of the last recession is stabilizing as the job market improves. Allow me to phrase this…
Economics, Housing, Latest Business Headlines
More Little Lies and Big Spin- Gains or Blips?
by Lee Adler • • 4 Comments
The FIM (Financial Infomercial Media) has gifted us with more nonsense today in the form of Pending Homes Sales data from the NAR (Realtors) and the Purchasing Managers Manufacturing Index from the ISM (Purchasing Managers). Bloomberg was positively ecstatic about the housing data, proclaiming “The number of contracts to buy previously owned homes rose more…
