Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Higher Energy Prices Lift U.S. Producer Price Index / Economics / Inflation
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.4% in February after a 0.1% increase in the prior month. The 1.3% gain in the energy price index was led by a 4.3% jump in gasoline prices. The food price index slipped 0.1%, marking the third consecutive monthly decline. Excluding food and energy, the core PPI advanced 0.2% during February vs. a 0.4% increase in January.
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Friday, March 16, 2012
U.S. Jobless Claims – Labor Market Improvement Continues / Economics / Unemployment
By: Asha_Bangalore
Initial jobless claims fell 14,000 to 351,000 during the week ended March 10. The four-week moving average at 355,750 is the lowest in nearly four years. Continuing claims, which lag initial jobless claims by one week, declined 81,000 to 3.343 million, the lowest since August 2008. The main message is the labor market conditions are improving at an impressive pace.
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Thursday, March 15, 2012
Europe's Economic Crisis: Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Belgium Following Greece / Economics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: Bob_Chapman
It isn’t over until it is over. Of course, we are referring to Europe and its version of 1984. We find it profound that the bankers, politicians and bureaucrats of Europe can do what they have done with a straight face. Investor had a haircut shoved down their throats and the ECB, the European Central Bank and the IMF were exempt.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Making 9 Million Jobless 'Vanish': How The U.S. Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics / Economics / Unemployment
By: Dan_Amerman
When we look at broad measures of jobs and population, then the beginning of 2012 was one of the worst months in US history, with a total of 2.3 million people losing jobs or leaving the workforce in a single month. Yet, the official unemployment rate showed a decline from 8.5% to 8.3% in January - and was such cheering news that it set off a stock rally.
How can there be such a stark contrast between the cheerful surface and an underlying reality that is getting worse?
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Tuesday, March 13, 2012
FOMC Meeting March 13, Fed Expected Stand Pat as U.S. Economic Recovery Remains Stable / Economics / US Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
It is widely expected that the Fed will stand pat at the March 13 FOMC meeting. Nevertheless, the Fed’s view about the economy should reflect nuanced modifications, which will offer hints about the next policy step.
The key question is if there is a need for additional policy action to support economic growth. Incoming economic data present a mixed picture. The ISM factory survey shows continued growth but at a slower pace compared with readings of recent months. The composite index moved down to 52.4 from 54.1 and the index measuring new orders stood at 54.9 from 57.6 in January (see Chart 1). Factory production data for February are scheduled for publication on March 16.
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Monday, March 12, 2012
U.S. Economy Rotting From Beneath / Economics / US Economy
By: EWI
Dear Investor,
Are you shocked that even with a 24-hour news cycle, crucial bits of economic news still fall through the cracks?
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Sunday, March 11, 2012
The Failed Great Depression / Economics / Great Depression II
By: Andrew_McKillop
Since 2007-2008 nearly all OECD countries, from Japan to the USA and the straight majority of European economies tasted free-fall economic conditions very similar to what the history books tell us about the 1929-1936 period. The economy went down and kept on going down. Recoveries were short, followed by more free-fall. Social and political stress rose as the economy fell - but this wasn't the case in China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina and other large and growing emerging economies, with a combined population two and a half times the population of the OECD group. In the "classic model" of economic collapse they should also have spun into recession.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
U.S. Economy is Adding Jobs, Fed Will Take a Pass at the March 13 FOMC Meeting / Economics / Employment
By: Asha_Bangalore
Civilian Unemployment Rate: 8.3% in February, unchanged from January. Cycle high jobless rate for the recent recession is 10.0%, registered in October 2009.
Payroll Employment: +227,000 jobs in February vs. +284,000 in January. Private sector jobs increased 233,000 after a gain of 285,000 in January. A net gain of 61,000 jobs due to revisions of payroll estimates of December and January.
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Friday, March 09, 2012
Mohamed El-Erian, U.S. Economy is 'Muddling Along' / Economics / US Economy
By: Bloomberg
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer and co-chief investment officer at PIMCO, spoke about the February U.S. jobs report and the European debt crisis on Bloomberg Television this morning. El-Erian said the economy is "muddling through" and that "one-off factors" have contributed to a recent stock market rally.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Why Chinese Economy Won't Collapse, Premier Wen Real Story / Economics / China Economy
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes:
According to Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday, China is only going to grow at 7.5% this year.
But this isn't the bombshell most Western analysts think it is-even though the markets sold off on the day and may continue their temper tantrum later this week.
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Wednesday, March 07, 2012
How Many New U.S. Jobs Are Necessary to Hit the Full Employment Mark? / Economics / Employment
By: Asha_Bangalore
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has created a jobs calculator which enables quick computations to answer this question. The Fed’s projection of the long-term unemployment rate is 5.2%-6.0%, published in January, and it is the jobless rate considered consistent with full employment. Let us consider these two rates and determine how many jobs have to be created each month to reach full employment. Plugging in a target of 5.2% jobless rate at the end of 48 months from today in the jobs calculator yields 188,341 (establishment survey) – 201,467 (household survey) new jobs per month as necessary to achieve this goal.
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Tuesday, March 06, 2012
China: Wen Indicates a 7.5% GDP Growth Forecast for 2012 / Economics / China Economy
By: Asha_Bangalore
One of the major risks to the global economic outlook for 2012 has been the likelihood of hard landing in China. Much of this matter has been laid to rest with China’s premier Wen’s economic predictions at the opening of the National People’s Congress. Wen noted that Beijing projects economic growth of 7.5% for 2012 vs. the 8.0% forecast of 2011.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Did U.S. Q4 GDP Data Pull In Future Economic Growth / Economics / US Economy
By: Tony_Pallotta
No economics degree is required nor any complex analysis to understand how vulnerable the US economy is right now. In Q4 the economy expanded by 3% fueled by a 1.9% increase in inventory. By comparison Q3 inventory contracted (1.4%). In other words if the two year inventory trajectory did not suddenly reverse Q4 GDP quite possibly would have been flat to negative.
Saturday, March 03, 2012
U.S. Economy, Is This As Good As It Gets For Now? / Economics / US Economy
By: Sy_Harding
In Europe, the euro-zone debt crisis has pretty much faded from headlines. The arrangements that will bail out Greece - at least for now - have been pretty much finalized. The European Central Bank has made two huge rounds of low cost 3-year loans available to European banks, and that seems to be working to assure that the eurozone financial system will be okay for several years.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 02, 2012
Huge Problem With Bernanke's 2% Inflation Target Explained in Graphs / Economics / Inflation
By: Mike_Shedlock
Ben Bernanke wants prices to rise 2%. There are numerous problems with such a proposal, the first being increases in money supply sometimes lead to asset bubbles and not increases in prices of consumer goods.
Indeed the Fed completely ignored (if not encouraged) the housing bubble because home prices are not in the CPI. A housing bubble and a housing crash was the result.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Get the Dire Economic Stats You Won't Get from 24-Hour News / Economics / US Economy
By: EWI
Dear Investor,
Are you shocked that even with a 24-hour news cycle, crucial bits of economic news still fall through the cracks?
The financial media only seem to regurgitate the same, tired bullish proclamations about the year ahead. It will be better than 2011, they say, but the numbers don't lie. By some revealing measures, the economy is actually worse now than it was at the end of 2010.
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Thursday, March 01, 2012
Private Sector vs. Government Sector in the Current Economic Recovery / Economics / Economic Recovery
By: Asha_Bangalore
Real GDP of the economy is estimated to have grown at an annual rate of 3.0% in the fourth quarter, an upward revision from the advance estimate of a 2.8% increase. Upward revisions of consumer spending, outlays of structures, residential investment expenditures and government spending more than offset downward revisions of exports and equipment and software spending to yield a slightly higher reading of real GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2011.
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Mish Deflationista vs Current Stagflation Environment / Economics / Inflation
By: David_Petch
This article deals with the current environment of stagflation we are in that will see periods of defined inflation, followed by short but intense deflation, unlike a constant "Deflationista" environment as insinuated in the writings of blogger, Mike Shedlock. A few years back he came out with an article about legendary Strategic Investor Donald Coxe (Who is an extremely captivating writer with his vast knowledge of history and amusing ways in which words are spun together), titled "Donald Coxe Jumps the Shark". Mike got the call on deflation of 2008 correct...KUDOS to Mike. However, the constant beating of drums about deflation deflation deflation is kind of like someone waiting for over 20 years for that 3rd of a 3rd of a 3rd down that just never really seems to materialize. The discovery I made back in July of 2011 that a Contracting Fibonacci Spiral nailed every major high since the 1934 low after much thought defines why the markets are behaving as they do. By completion, this article should explain why defining the present environment as deflationary is like only using one sense to describe an elephant when using the collective of all senses provides a much better answer and explanation.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Ron Paul: U.S. Economy Squeezed As Debt Accelerates / Economics / US Debt
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee has pointed out that our per capita government debt is already larger than Greece's. Per person, our government owes over $49,000 compared to $38,937 per Greek citizen. Our debt has just reached 101% of our Gross Domestic Product. Our creditors see this and have quietly slowed down or stopped their lending to us. As a result, the Federal Reserve has been outright monetizing debt as a way to patch things together and keep the economy on life support a little longer. There is rapidly shrinking demand for our debt, and confidence in the dollar is falling. This phenomenon is hidden only by the fact that confidence in all other fiat currencies is falling faster.
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Saturday, February 25, 2012
Can the U.S. Economy Sidestep Europe’s Recession? / Economics / US Economy
By: Sy_Harding
The surprises continue in the U.S. economic recovery.
This week’s reports include that home prices rose 0.7% in December, an encouraging ending to a year in which prices were down another 2.4% for the full year. And existing home sales rose 4.3% in January. Even more surprising, the inventory of unsold homes has now fallen to its lowest level since March, 2005.
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