Anthony Chan
Anthony Chan
belief bunker events mentality result retail sales terrible wake weakness
It confirms the belief that the weakness in retail sales was the result of a bunker mentality in the wake of the terrible events of Sept. 11.
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The outsized gain in housing starts was influenced by the same variable dominating most of the other headline stats like the retail sales and industrial production, namely weather. Everyone knows that housing starts is a volatile number that generally reports wide swings.
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This gives the Fed license to continue executing monetary policy. If they see any signs of slow growth in employment, industrial production, or retail sales, they certainly have the green light to make another cut. They have total flexibility to do whatever it takes to prevent a recession.
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This confidence is encouraging and takes some of the pressure off the terrible number we saw with retail sales.
chain discount factor happening issue retail store
I think a seasonal factor is part of the issue here, but you can't discount it all. Look at what is happening with chain store sales. They've been pretty weak. Some of it (weak retail employment) is real.
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The retail sales figures clearly prove that betting against the consumer is a sucker's bet. Not surprisingly, the ex-auto figure on retail sales tears down the argument that consumers are only buying cars and houses.
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These numbers are essentially telling us that retail sales were artificially boosted by zero-percent financing. These numbers are not going to do anything to discourage the Fed from thinking that the balance of risk in the economy is toward weakness.
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What the Fed showed was that extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary strategy. Not only are they moving rates to lows not seen since the early '60s, they're prepared to move them a lot lower.
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We will see more bad news on the employment front. We see unemployment going to 6.1 percent or 6.2 percent before it's over; no way are we going to see that coming down while we're creating so few jobs.
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These claims numbers confirm the notion that things may improve sometime in the future. The fact that we didn't go over 400,000 was very encouraging.
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These results suggest that the current low energy prices should serve as an important and positive boost to overall economic growth.
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The stock market didn't want the economy to grow too quickly because they were worried about aggressive rate hikes, ... They wanted the Goldilocks approach where everything was just right. But now they realize that maybe the porridge is a bit too cold for their taste.
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The small improvement in labor market conditions, despite the continued risks that remain on this front, do suggest that even with all the caveats that Greenspan echoed in his latest testimony ... the Fed might be inclined to move towards a neutral risk bias.
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The significant number of headwinds such as rising energy prices and the prospects of rising short-term rates are taking their toll on the economy,