Another Gain in Business Inventories
ThinkstockBusiness inventories rose less than expected in the month of December. We would caution that this is an older number and is not generally a market-moving release. Also note that this does coincide with…
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Newest first · Page 339Retail Sales and Import/Export Prices Show Gains
ThinkstockWe had two rounds of economic readings this Wednesday morning: retail sales for the month of January, as well as import and export prices for the month of January. Retail sales rose by 0.1%…
Nemo and More Distortion of Economic Stats
ThinkstockOne of the hangovers of Hurricane Sandy was the effect on late October economic activity. Everything from employment data to retail sales dipped, and sometimes collapsed, depending on an area’s proximity to the storm. Along…
Federal Reserve Shows Consumer Credit Posts Fifth Straight Monthly Gain
ThinkstockConsumer Credit is on the rise yet again according to the Federal Reserve, although with it being a December reading we might consider it somewhat expected. What investors need to know is that this…
January ISM Non-Manufacturing Falls but Hits 42nd Consecutive Month of Growth
ThinkstockThe January ISM Report on Business for the nonmanufacturing sector came in at 55.2%, down from 55.7% in December. The result was also just above the Dow Jones consensus of 55.0% and even closer…
Factory Orders and Employment Trends Fail to Spark More Selling
ThinkstockMonday is looking soft after weeks and weeks of a rally and inflows. Pullbacks are good right now. But the pullback that we were seeing of more than 100 points in the DJIA is…
ISM Data, Consumer Sentiment and Construction Spending Bring DJIA 14,000
ThinkstockWe have two important readings out this morning, after the key unemployment report from earlier. We have seen the University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading. This report was immediately followed by the ISM Manufacturing…
Davos Economists Not Optimistic About 2013 Economic Recovery
ThinkstockThe World Economic Forum in Davos will give economists a chance to flog their views of the 2013 recovery, and apparently they will not be optimistic. According to the Financial Times: The world economy…
Richmond Fed Turns Handily South in January
ThinkstockThe Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond has released its Regional Survey of Business Activity. The bank showed that the service sector activity improved and was bolstered by nonretail services. It also showed that the current…
Chicago Fed National Activity Index Disappoints for December
ThinkstockOne report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is the National Activity Index for the month of December, which was released this morning. It is somewhat misleading by the name because it is…
Consumer Sentiment Tanks, Worse Than All Expectations
ThinkstockThe Reuters/University of Michigan survey is out with its preliminary January reading on consumer sentiment. Its sentiment index came in at 71.3, which is rather disappointing. Make that extremely disappointing. The December reading was…
Capacity Utilization Keeps Heading in the Right Direction
ThinkstockThe Federal Reserve has released data showing that industrial production and capacity utilization rates both rose in December. When you consider that the entire media and business focus was around the coming fiscal cliff…
Very Mixed Bag on Economic Data: Inflation, Retail Sales and Empire Manufacturing
A slew of economic data was released this morning. We got a look at retail sales, wholesale inflation via producer prices, and also the Empire Manufacturing reading. Some data is more current than others.…
Chicago Fed President Pessimistic About U.S. Economy
ThinkstockChicago Fed President Charles Evans voiced pessimism about the prospects for the America economy in the year ahead. He believes the economy will grow only 2.5% this year, as measured by gross domestic product.…
ISM Non-manufacturing Index Shows Steady Gains in December
ThinkstockThe services sector is improving. Today’s report from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) for December rose to 56.1%. Bloomberg was calling for 54.5% and Dow Jones was looking for only 54.0%. The November…