Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 26, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Unexpected and Welcomed News As discussed later in this issue, there had been a sense that economic growth was falling off at the end of last year and at the start of this one. The part that was not as clear was what has been happening lately. By most accounts, the beginning of the second quarter was strong...
Continue reading
0
  371 Hits
  0 Comments
Tags:
nacmblog
Tweet
371 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 24, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Not All Housing Data is Bleak Earlier in the week, the data on existing home sales was not all that encouraging and it was asserted that all those housing headwinds were taking their toll. Now comes the data on new home sales and it tells a far different story, with a gain of 4.5% as compared to the expected dec...
Continue reading
0
  274 Hits
  0 Comments
Tags:
nacmblog
Tweet
274 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 22, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Reactions to Tariffs There is no more consistent and powerful law in economics than the law of unintended consequences. The fact is nobody really knows how people will react to a given change although there is generally some historical precedent that can be used as a reference. One example of this, as it pertain...
Continue reading
0
  190 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
190 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 19, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy No Fed Retreat Likely Trump is not the first president to get irritated with the policies of the Federal Reserve although he has certainly taken his criticism further than any of his predecessors. The fact is politicians will always favor growth and will always be reluctant to endorse anything that slows growth ...
Continue reading
0
  204 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
204 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 17, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Are Malls Dead? Of all the economic shifts taking place over the last few years, none seem to have such far-reaching implications as the death of the shopping mall. These shopping centers have been at the heart of economic development for years—essentially replacing the traditional main street. Now, they seem to...
Continue reading
0
  168 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
168 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 15, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Industrial Production Expected to Be Lower The Federal Reserve releases industrial production numbers this week. Most expect them to be a little lower than they have been. Last month marked the second consecutive month of decline. This would mark month No. 3. The decline has been very broad based on slowdowns in...
Continue reading
0
  170 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
170 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 12, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Fed Independence From the start, there was an opportunity for Trump to pack the Federal Reserve since there were six vacancies in a seven-person Board of Governors when he started his term. Outside of some back and forth over the fate of Janet Yellen, the choices made were all quite safe and traditional. Jerome ...
Continue reading
0
  180 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
180 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 10, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Fed Battle to Be Waged in Senate For the last year or so, the Trump approach to the Federal Reserve has been increasingly hostile. The initial appointments made to the Fed were pretty traditional and did not run into much opposition in the Senate. These included Jerome Powell as chair, Richard Clarida as vice ch...
Continue reading
0
  175 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
175 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 8, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Budget Fight Looms In October, the two-year deal struck by Congress expires. That means Congress will need to develop a new budget by that point or watch the process revert to what it was two years ago. This would bring back the sequester, which would mandate a cut in the budget of 10% for the 2019 period. That ...
Continue reading
0
  185 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
185 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 5, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Job Gains Back to Near Predicted Levels The economy added another 196,000 jobs in March—a slightly higher number than had been predicted, but close— and a far cry from the anemic total that set off rounds of worry and concern in February. The unemployment rate remained at 3.8%. That is on par with the lowest rat...
Continue reading
0
  336 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
336 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 3, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Private Sector Job Gains? The official Labor Department numbers do not come out until Friday of this week, but there has been a release from ADP, the payroll company. This report is generally seen as fairly accurate, but there have been times when the data did not match up well with the official numbers. The ADP...
Continue reading
0
  181 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
181 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for April 1, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy It Is Not Time—Even Doves Agree Neel Kashkari has been one of the most vocal of the regional Fed presidents on the subject of rates. He has been consistently dovish and has opposed all of the rate cuts that have taken place thus far despite eventually going along with some of the decisions. He is not a voting me...
Continue reading
0
  228 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
228 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 29, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Economic Slowdown Was Corporate Slowdown The latest data coming from the investment community shows that much of the problem with economic growth at the end of 2018 can be attributed to a radical slowdown in the rate of corporate profits. This slowdown was masked to some degree by the surging stock market as it ...
Continue reading
0
  181 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
181 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 28, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Fed Pushback on Yield Curve Debate As with most assertions regarding economic cause and effect, there are flaws in the logic. The belief is that an inverted yield curve is the precursor to a recession. While that has been true, there has always been a lot of variance. That recession may take two or three years t...
Continue reading
0
  178 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
178 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 25, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Inverted Yield Curve Arrives—Time to Panic? When there is an inverted yield curve, there is a school of thought that assumes a recession is imminent—after all the last seven recessions have featured just such an inverted curve. This is when the 10-year bond yield falls below that of the three-year bond. The inve...
Continue reading
0
  172 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
172 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 22, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Employment Data Remains Strong By almost any measure, the job market has been staying strong. There was another week of reduced jobless claims, which tends to offset the fears regarding the slower than expected job growth reported last week. The job market is still better defined by the shortages that persist th...
Continue reading
0
  299 Hits
  0 Comments
Tags:
nacmblog
Tweet
299 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 20, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Jobs and Housing The labor shortage crisis shows no signs of abating. By most accounts, it will worsen in the future as more and more of the Boomer generation retire and stay retired. There are many reasons employers have been unable to find the people they need—lack of skilled people in the hiring pipeline has ...
Continue reading
0
  176 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
176 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 18, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Manufacturing Decline The slowdown in the manufacturing sector has extended to two months according to the data released by the Fed. The level of output at U.S. factories fell by another 0.4%. That is on top of the decline from the month before. This is hardly a crash, but it means that most of the manufacturing...
Continue reading
0
  181 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
181 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 15, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Housing Sector Off to Weak Start The expectation for this year was not especially high given all the accumulated issues affecting the housing sector, but the latest data in new home starts has been weaker than expected. The decline was 6.9%, when the majority thought there would be a small increase. In January, ...
Continue reading
0
  264 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
264 Hits
0 Comments

Strategic Global Intelligence Brief for March 13, 2019

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Inflation Threat Remains Tepid Economists have been accused of being more than a little like Cassandra with their repeated warnings of events that nobody chooses to believe until they come to pass. Inflation has been on the minds of analysts for several years now as the ingredients seem to have been in place for...
Continue reading
0
  234 Hits
  0 Comments
Tweet
234 Hits
0 Comments
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10