Bill Cheney
Bill Cheney
benign
It's really a benign number, so no real new news.
consumer economy expansion keeping true
It's reassuring. It is true that the consumer is the only part of the economy that's keeping the expansion going right now.
assume gets jump outlook start tend time worry
Any time there's a jump in one index, you start to worry about the other one. And any time one of them is tame, you tend to assume that the outlook for the other gets better.
indicator time
Every time you see another indicator that they (consumers) are still spending, that's encouraging.
black clear danger mood people prevent signs trigger
If there are danger signs brewing ... that make people very, very nervous, I don't see anything that could prevent the same kind of mood (as Black Monday's) from reappearing. It's clear that you don't need a very concrete, cut-and-dried kind of trigger to make people stampede if they're in the mood to be stampeded.
buying christmas close coming consumer gauge industry number onto patterns perhaps represents retail sales season sentiment shopping since year
The retail sales number is perhaps more important than it would look at first sight. Since we're coming so close to the Christmas shopping season when most of the retail sales of the year happen, anything that represents a gauge of consumer sentiment and consumer buying patterns is going to be latched onto by the retail industry as an important indicator.
cutting fed number rates relax
This is kind of number that will let the Fed relax and keep cutting rates as long as they see a need.
consistent consumer consumers economy half pulling road second spending view
This is consistent with the view that the U.S. economy really is on the road to recovery. Consumers are not pulling back. Consumer spending is going to get us into a second half 2001 rebound.
coming fairly fed percent starts sticks
If unemployment sticks at about 6.0 percent and starts coming down, the Fed will probably feel it has to start tightening fairly soon.
gas goes living oil price
If you're living on the edge, then when the price of gas and heating oil goes up, you end up over the edge.
corporate flow gains job market rapid seems until wages
In principle, rapid productivity should make wages rise, but it seems that until the job market tightens up a bit, all the productivity gains flow to corporate profits.
above consumer hang level spending trend
I don't really see this as down; it's really flat. We're still at a level well above the post-Sept. 11 low; and so long as it doesn't trend downward, I'm comfortable with the idea that consumer spending is going to hang in there.
bail deciding fourth good late mid people results starting true whether
By mid to late October, you're getting into the fourth quarter, and people are starting to look at their year-end results and deciding whether they can bail out now and still look good for the year. That's going to be as true now as it was (in 1987).
economic fact good month news
But you have to come back to the fact that another good month is another good month. And that is good news for the economic recovery.