It likely that the GDP for the first quarter of 2019 slowed way down from the 2018 average of 2.9%. Most experts are calling for 1% or so growth. They point to a sharp slowdown in retail sales. The problem with that is retail sales reports for February are delayed and all we have is […]
This week we will have a rare Quadruple Witching Friday. That is where contracts for stock-index futures, stock –index options, individual stock options and individual stock futures all expire. What that means for the stock market is more volatility. So this week we will see options buying and corporate buyback flows as a likely result, […]
For December, new home sales spiked to 621,000 from 599,000 in November. This data was delayed and at this point is pretty old. For the same month construction spending, also delayed, was down .6%; twice what was expected. It is difficult to gauge the strength or weakness of the economy with the delayed reports from […]
We are getting catch up data released this week from the government shutdown and at the same time we are getting some reports that are delayed again. New home sales and durable goods orders for January are both delayed again. Yesterday the consumer confidence index for February spiked up to 131.4 from 121.7 in January. […]
Studies have shown that lump sum investing beats dollar cost averaging. What this means is that you have a lump sum of money you would use to buy stocks all at one time, and over time it would do better than spreading the investment over a specific time period. The facts are there, but most […]
Why would a judgment in Australia matter to investors? It was a ruling to prevent a coal mining company from expanding, but part of the decision was based on global warming. The court for the first time anywhere said it using global warming as a reason to prevent the owner to expand a mining project. […]
The late retail sales report for December was released yesterday. It showed a strikingly weak number falling 1.2%, and if you take out autos it fell 1.8%. Those are the worst numbers in nine years. Gasoline sales fell hard too, but mostly because the price at the pump fell in December. However, internet sales shrank […]
In the fourth quarter of 2018, household debt rose for the 18th quarter in a row. It stands at $13.54 trillion as reported by the New York Federal Reserve. At the same time new mortgage debt fell to the lowest level in nearly four years. The refi business was crushed and balances on home-equity loans fell […]
Every quarter we get a report from the government about productivity of the American work force. Accompanying that report, to determine productivity, is quarterly unit labor costs and other associated numbers. For the fourth quarter of 2018 the report has been delayed because of the recent government partial shutdown. Every worker should be concerned with […]
From the government shut down, that ended a couple of weeks ago, we are still getting delayed economic numbers coming out of Washington. This week productivity and unit labor costs for the fourth quarter are delayed. The trade imbalance for December has been pushed back as well. There was a November report that was previously […]