Analysis Topic: Economic Trends Analysis
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
Are We Headed for Another Economic Bust? / Economics / US Economy
By: Frank_Shostak
On Wednesday December 16, 2015, Federal Reserve Bank policymakers raised the federal funds rate target by 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent for the first time since December 2008. There is the possibility that the target could be lifted gradually to 1.25 percent by December next year.
Monday, January 04, 2016
Technical Analysis of the Corn Commodity Market / Economics / Agricultural Commodities
By: EconMatters
Corn Market 2015
I have been watching corn prices lately as they are getting low enough to at least pique my interest into looking at a market that usually just gets bypassed with the rest of my agricultural futures prices tab on my trading platform, more out of habit than having anything in particular against the agricultural markets. The March 2016 Futures contract was down about 16% in 2015 along with most of the commodity space on fund outflows, a weak China, and a strong dollar.
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Friday, January 01, 2016
China's Security of Supply / Economics / China Economy
By: Richard_Mills
Consider:
- There is a slowing of production and dwindling of reserves at many of the world's largest mines.
- All the oz's or pounds are never recovered from a mine - they simply becomes too expensive to recover.
- The pace of new elephant-sized discoveries has decreased in the mining industry.
- Discoveries are smaller and in less accessible regions.
- Mineralogy & metallurgy is more complicated making extraction of metals from the mined ore increasingly more complex and expensive.
- Mining is cyclical which makes mining companies reluctant to spend on exploration and development.
- A looming skills shortage
- There is no substitute for many metals except other metals - plastic piping is one exception.
- Metal markets are small so speculation is a larger factor.
- There hasn't been a new technology shift in mining for decades - heap leach and open pit mining come to mind but they are both decades old innovation.
- Country risk - resource extraction companies, because the number of discoveries was falling and existing deposits were being quickly depleted, have had to diversify away from the traditional geo-politically safe producing countries. The move out of these "safe haven" countries has exposed investors to a lot of additional risk.
- Lack of recognition for population growth, growing middle class w/disposable incomes and urbanization as on-going demand growth factors.
- Climate change.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Why Austrian Investing Is Important In The Era Of State Imposed Fiat Money / Economics / Fiat Currency
By: GoldSilverWorlds
We are living in extreme times. When it comes to investing, the economy and markets, the extreme monetary policies of central banks all over the world should be top of mind of every investor.
To make our point, we refer to the 3 following charts that readers know by now … But it always helps to put things in perpsective. Our focus here is on the time period as of 1971 which will likely go in history books as the era of the “Great Monetary Experiment” (or something alike).
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Sunday, December 27, 2015
Yet Another Reason To Invest in Vietnam and Pakistan / Economics / Emerging Markets
By: Submissions
Dylan Waller writes: Vietnam and Pakistan’s automotive industries are both poised for substantial growth, and consequently present a flurry of investment opportunities. Both countries have been positive outliers in Asia, due to superior stock market performance, higher economic growth, and also due to the relatively lower FX risks. As both countries begin their transition to emerging markets, the automotive industry in particular represents a strategic outlet for investors to profit from the superior investment landscape that is present in both countries.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
U.S. Secular Economic Stagnation? / Economics / US Economy
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Stagnationists have been around for centuries. They have embraced many economic theories about what causes economic stagnation. That’s a situation in which total output, or output per capita, is constant, falling slightly, or rising sluggishly. Stagnation can also be characterized by a situation in which unemployment is chronic and growing.Before we delve into the secular stagnation debate – a debate that has become a hot topic – a few words about current economic developments in the U.S. are in order. What was recently noticed was the Federal Reserve’s increase, for the first time in nearly a decade, of the fed funds interest rate by 0.25 percent. What went unnoticed, but was perhaps more important, was that the money supply, broadly measured by the Center for Financial Stability’s Divisia M4, jumped to a 4.6 percent year-over-year growth rate. This was the largest increase since May 2013.
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Tuesday, December 22, 2015
BEA Revises 3rd Quarter 2015 U.S. GDP Growth Upward to 1.99% / Economics / US Economy
By: CMI
In their third (and "final") estimate of the US GDP for the third quarter of 2015, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the economy was growing at a +1.99% annualized rate, down -0.08% from their previous estimate -- and down nearly 2% (-1.93%) from the second quarter.
Almost all of the revisions in this report were minor, with the largest changes again involving the especially noisy inventory data. Most of the other line items were essentially unchanged. Inventories were reported to have been contracting at a -0.71% annualized rate, a -0.12% deterioration from from the -0.59% contraction rate reported in the previous estimate. As we have mentioned a number of times before, the BEA's treatment of inventories can introduce noise and seriously distort the headline number over short terms -- which the BEA admits by also publishing a secondary headline that excludes the impact of inventories. This BEA "bottom line" (their "Real Final Sales of Domestic Product") was actually revised upward +0.04% to a +2.70% growth rate for the third quarter, from the +2.66% previously reported.
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Monday, December 21, 2015
The Recession And Bear Market Of 2016, In Two Charts / Economics / Recession 2016
By: John_Rubino
Good friend Michael Pollaro just sent a couple of charts that show the US economy heading for a brick wall. The first illustrates what happens when business sales (the green line) turn negative. In the previous two boom/bust cycles, when sales started falling the economy either tipped into recession shortly thereafter or (it was discovered in retrospect) was already well into a contraction.
Friday, December 18, 2015
The Velocity of the American Consumer / Economics / US Economy
By: Raul_I_Meijer
I was reading something yesterday by my highly esteemed fellow writer Charles Hugh Smith that had me first puzzled and then thinking ‘I don’t think so’, in the same vein as Mark Twain’s recently over-quoted quote:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
I was thinking that was the case with Charles’ article. I was sure it just ain’t so. As for Twain, I’m more partial to another quote of his these days (though it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic:
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Consumer Prices: A Sticky Situation / Economics / Inflation
By: Gary_Tanashian
We have noted anecdotally that there is a creeping inflation in the system. It does not show up in commodities, which are in a post-bubble (ah, the good old ‘China story’ that was so vigorously promoted to a degree that would make a gold bug promoter blush) melt down. Crashing costs like that are providing the Goldilocks-like balance to rising costs within the economy.
This morning, the highly recommended Daily Shot had among its macro graphs a look at the “sticky” consumer price index. That got me to go over to the St. Louis Fed website and pull a couple different views of it. First, here is SLF’s description of the sticky index…
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
UK Jobs: No Pay, No Play / Economics / Employment
By: Ashraf_Laidi
Today's release of the UK jobs figures confirms the suspicions of the doves at the Bank of England, with earnings (pay) growth continuing to decline, joblessness pushing higher for the fourth straight month even as the unemployment rate hit a fresh 7-year low of 5.2%.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Vietnam Sails Smoothly Through The Commodity Storm / Economics / Asian Economies
By: Submissions
Dylan Waller writes: While the gloom faced in commodity prices has created slowed economic growth throughout frontier and emerging markets, there is one global market in Asia in particular that has not been deterred: Vietnam. Low commodity prices have been gruesome for some companies, and on a much larger scale has led to a global economic slowdown for commodity based economies. While the current environment has created a flurry of buy opportunities in commodity based economies, investment in Vietnam provides a similar opportunity with substantially lower risk. Vietnam’s economy, driven by its strategic advantage of low cost manufacturing, is continuing to maintain its position as one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, and is poised for stronger economic growth throughout 2025.
Tuesday, December 08, 2015
Do You Follow The Hype Surrounding Economic Reporting? / Economics / Economic Statistics
By: Rodney_Johnson
When my children were young, one of the books we read to them was: “When You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” The point of the book is to follow a chain reaction stemming from providing a treat to a rodent. He will want a glass of milk, a napkin, have to sweep up crumbs, etc. It was odd, but entertaining.I’m often reminded of this book when I see economic reports. It’s not that the numbers are frivolous, but taken as individual data points they can’t mean very much.
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Monday, December 07, 2015
What Deflation Quacks Like / Economics / Deflation
By: Raul_I_Meijer
As yet another day of headlines shows, see the links and details in today’s Debt Rattle at the Automatic Earth, deflation is visible everywhere, from a 98% drop in EM debt issuance to junk bonds reporting the first loss since 2008 to corporate bonds downgrades to plummeting cattle prices in Kansas to China’s falling demand for iron ore and a whole list of other commodities.
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Saturday, December 05, 2015
Strong U.S. Payroll Number +211,000 Assures December Interest Rate Hike / Economics / US Economy
By: Mike_Shedlock
Initial Reaction
Following last month's payroll surge comes a second strong month. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate was 190,000 jobs and the headline total was 211,000. The unemployment rate was steady to 5.0%, the lowest since April 2008. A rate hike in December is now assured.
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Friday, December 04, 2015
The “Real Stuff” Economy Is Falling Apart / Economics / US Economy
By: John_Rubino
Each month one or two high-profile government reports show the US is growing, adding jobs and generally recovering from the Great Recession. But it’s not clear how that can be, when the part of the economy that makes and moves real things keeps shrinking. Here’s a chart, published recently by Zero Hedge, showing that US manufacturing has been contracting for the past year:
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Bank Regulations Continue To Hinder The U.S. Economic Recovery / Economics / Market Regulation
By: Steve_H_Hanke
Money matters — it’s one of Milton Friedman’s maxims that I repeat often in my columns. Since the Northern Rock bank run of 2007 — the “opening shot” of the financial crisis — the money supply, broadly measured, in the United States, Great Britain, and the Eurozone has taken a beating.
Recently, in the United States, money supply growth has started to rebound somewhat. This is a positive sign, because the quantity of money and nominal gross domestic product (GDP), as well as related measures of aggregate demand, are all closely related. Indeed, if broad money growth is robust, the nominal GDP, which is composed of real and inflation components, will be robust and vice versa.
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Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Collapsing Global Economic Trade / Economics / Global Economy
By: Chris_Vermeulen
The global economic trade is down 8.4 percent so far this year. Among the many economic indicators that experts use to gauge the health of the world economy, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) usually goes unnoticed. This Index offers an indication of the global demand and supply of major stock materials that are used by manufacturers at the beginning of production. And the shocking truth is that the index has been plummeting to reach a new low not seen before.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Economics Is About Scarcity, Property, and Relationships / Economics / Economic Theory
By: MISES
Michael J. McKay writes: The other day I was having coffee with a new friend, a retired businessman who had customized luxury cars in California. I mentioned I had recently retired from owning an investment firm and had studied economics for many years, especially Austrian economics.
Like so many people, he said, “I really don't understand economics and always have been confused by it.”
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Tuesday, November 24, 2015
BEA Revises 3rd Quarter 2015 US GDP Economic Growth Upward to 2.07% / Economics / US Economy
By: CMI
In their second estimate of the US GDP for the third quarter of 2015, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the economy was growing at a +2.07% annualized rate, up +0.58% from their previous estimate -- but still down nearly 2% (-1.85%) from the second quarter.