The problem is plain enough. Student debt continues to rise year after year. Many students with the debt will never repay it. Some set of organizations will be left with crippling losses. No one…
From a moral point of view, it is difficult to say whether the efforts of Greek unions to shut down the nation’s economy are ethical. From an economic viewpoint, it is not. Massive walkouts slow…
ThinkstockBusiness inventories are on the rise. Today’s report from the Commerce Department showed that the month of August’s business inventories rose by 0.6% for the month. This was versus what was expected to be…
Monday morning brought on two different economic reports, each with different aspects of the economy. The New York Fed released the Empire Manufacturing Index for October and the Commerce Department released the September retail…
Stocks are trying to stage a bounce after 4 days of steady declines. Maybe the VP-debate matters to some and maybe a stronger than expected Reuters/UofM sentiment report for October are helping the trading action.…
The report on wholesale inflation for the month of September is out and running a bit. The U.S. Labor Department said that the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 1.1% on the headline reading,…
On Wall St., the managers of huge money manager BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) are often considered the smartest guys in the room. Their ability to successfully manage high returns are legendary. That gives some…
Wholesale inventories rose yet again. Today’s reading from the Commerce Department showed a 0.5% gain in wholesale inventories to a seasonally adjusted $487.5 billion. While higher, this matched the Dow Jones consensus of a gain…
Workers at a manufacturing facility of China’s Foxconn “struck” the company twice over the weekend, or once, or not at all, depending on the source of the information. Most likely, two labor disruptions occurred. The media gave…
U.S. Factory Orders fell by 5.2% in August. The report is down from a reading of a 2.8% gain originally reported in factory orders in July, but the Bloomberg consensus reading was looking for…
The Institute for Supply Management, or the ISM, managed to show that the nonmanufacturing sector posted its 33rd consecutive month of growth. The ISM’s Report on Business showed a reading of 55.1% for the…
The September report from The National Association of Credit Management is out with a positive headline and a positive bias at the start. The problem is that the gains have caveats and the report…
The Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading is out for September, but we would note that this is the final number for the month after the preliminary reading out two weeks ago. The final…
The report for September’s Chicago purchasing managers is a huge disappointment, and the report is sending stocks further south (DJIA -112 and S&P 500 -11). The adjusted index fell to a recessionary/contraction level of…
Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Charles Plosser created waves this week when he came out and spoke about the risks to the Federal Reserve’s credibility due to the latest round of quantitative easing. The words…