Bank of the West U.S. Outlook Report for April 10, 2015 US Outlook Report: Labor Market Recovery Not So Fast and Furious We already knew the economy has been slowing over the past two quarters. In contrast, labor market indicators have been a beacon of strength and resilience. This has provided the bedrock for macroeconomic […]
Continue ReadingBank of the West U.S. Outlook Report for April 3, 2015 – US Outlook Report: Flat Start But Stronger Finish Still in Focus It has been another ham-handed start to the year. Now we can add February real consumer spending, employment and the ISM manufacturing survey for March to the list of downbeat economic indicators. […]
Continue ReadingBank of the West U.S. Outlook Report for March 27, 2015 – US Outlook Report: What Does the Drop in New Orders Mean? What’s the saying, “Get used to disappointment”? Despite expectations for stabilization, durable goods orders for February remained weaker than expected, dropping another 1.4% on the month. Non-defense capital goods orders, excluding aircraft, […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: FOMC Scales Back Rate Hike Expectations The large gap between the Federal Open Market Committee’s Fed funds target rate expectations and the market’s own projections about the future path of the Fed’s rate policy closed rapidly this week and it wasn’t the market adjusting to the Fed, it was the Fed bringing […]
Continue ReadingInstant Analysis of Today’s March FOMC Statement FOMC removes “patient” language- a June or Sept. liftoff on the table, April ruled out. New guidance – FOMC must see further improvement in the labor market and be reasonably confident that inflation will move back to 2 percent over medium term Fewer “Hawks” on the Committee pushes […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: The Curious Case of Missing Retail Sales Here we go again. February retail sales once again missed economists’ expectations, falling 0.6 percent on the month after a steep 0.8 percent monthly decline in January. This caps three consecutive months now of declining retail sales. Looked at in a vacuum, such an atrocious […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: Insights from the Beige Book Report Usually the Beige Book report from the Federal Reserve is a pretty boring read, largely a descriptive analysis of various regions and sectors of our economy. Economists often end up just counting up the positive to negative words to gauge any new insights on the Fed’s […]
Continue ReadingInstant Analysis of Today’s Employment Report for February Job Creation Exceeded Expectations in February; +295K vs. Consensus Exp. +235K Unemployment Rate Drops two tenths to 5.5% December and January Job Numbers Revised Down a Net -18K Avg. Hourly Earnings up a Modest 0.1% (+2.0% y-o-y) Labor Force Participation Slips Job Growth in All Major Sectors […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: Keeping the Faith on the U.S. Economy The U.S. economy continues to perform in-line with our forecasts. U.S. real GDP growth cooled slightly to 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter, but appears to be growing at around a 2.4 percent annualized pace in the first quarter. However, worse-than-normal seasonal weather in much […]
Continue ReadingU.S. Outlook Report: Deflation Arrives in the United States We have been advertising it for a while now, but the January price data are finally coming in and the U.S. price deflation is as dramatic as I thought. Producer prices for January dropped 0.8%, twice as fast as the consensus of economists expected, and the […]
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