Gary Thayer
Gary Thayer
average beginning increase looks months percent retail sales strong together year
If you put the two months together it still looks as if retail sales were strong at the beginning of the year -- an average increase of 0.8 percent for each of the two months.
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If you look at the 12-month change in producer prices, it's positive 0.9 percent. As recently as May, the 12-month change was negative 2.8 percent -- so there were a lot more deflationary pressures earlier in year, and those seem to be abating.
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If you look back at the'70s and'80s, the Fed was perceived to be the man behind the curtains. Today, it's looked at as a more prominent player. I'd say (Greenspan's) better known than members of the Supreme Court, and that wasn't true of his predecessors.
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Generally I think these numbers could reduce some of the concerns about a quick or dramatic change in Fed policy.
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This supports the view that first-quarter economic activity is much better than what we saw in the fourth quarter of last year.
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This suggests the government saw more real growth and less inflation in the quarter.
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This report leaves the door open for a rate cut. There's still uncertainty out there, and as a way to sort of offset the uncertainty, the Fed will do more than it may need to do.
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We think the economy is poised to slow down and that's good news for the Federal Reserve.
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The good news is that what we've seen is an unchanged reading for the nonpetroleum items and it looks like what we're still seeing is lower prices for many consumer items.
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The good news is that what we've seen is an unchanged reading for the non-petroleum items ... so it doesn't look like we have a major inflation problem outside of oil, which is good for the Fed.
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The good news is that the inflation number was also revised down slightly but is still running higher than we saw a year or so ago,
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We've been seeing improvement in the non-manufacturing side since late last year. We're seeing more activity in the travel sector and others that were hit really hard last year after the terror attacks.
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Yields have risen to levels where buyers looking for yields are willing to take a risk and buy.
above business expansion fed outlook pointing quite zero
The Philadelphia Fed business outlook index is still above zero in January, pointing to expansion, but the expansion is not quite as broad.