Instant Analysis of Today’s December FOMC Statement FOMC is getting serious about raising the Fed funds target rate in 2015 Yellen says liftoff could happen as soon as April 2015- though still data dependent Dot-plot remains more hawkish than futures market expectations and FOMC statement Three Dissents: 2 Hawks and 1 Dove (All the dissenters […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: Reasons to Remain Optimistic In times of market turmoil like we have seen in recent days, with aggressive moves in currencies (stronger dollar), interest rates (declining interest rates), oil prices (plunging oil prices), and stocks (taking a tumble), it is easy to become bearish on the economic outlook as well. But in […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: The U.S. Consumer is Doing Just Fine There was much hand wringing earlier this week with the release of the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) estimate of an 11.0 percent drop in Thanksgiving weekend sales and 5.2 percent drop in buyer traffic from a year ago. The Thanksgiving weekend that includes Black Friday […]
Continue ReadingInstant Analysis of Today’s Employment Report for November Economists got their Christmas present early this year. A blowout November jobs report put a smile on my face this morning. November’s +321K nonfarm payroll jobs easily surpassed consensus expectations for +230K. Some analysts were talking about downside risks to the number due to weather, a weaker […]
Continue ReadingThe Housing Sector Healing Continues Housing market indicators, released this week, point to a housing sector poised to reaccelerate in 2015. Mortgage purchase applications, homebuilder sentiment, building permits, and existing home sales all had better than expected gains. The homebuilders’ sentiment gauge by the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), traditionally a good leading indicator of […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: Are Small Businesses Joining the Expansion? Fresh data from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and Senior Loan Officer Survey from the Federal Reserve add to the evidence that U.S. small businesses are finally joining the economic expansion. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rose to 96.1 last month and continues […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: Updating Our Virtuous Cycle Checklist There she blows! Like Captain Ahab trying to locate the elusive white whale from Moby-Dick, economists have been trying to spot a pro-growth virtuous cycle that would signal to the Fed that it’s okay to normalize interest rates and to others that it’s okay to come out […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: The Glass Half-Full Economy Coming on the heels of an October FOMC statement that emphasized the glass half-full view of the labor market recovery over the past year, the advance estimate of U.S. GDP for the third quarter provided a similar view of recent U.S. economic growth. Consumer confidence is soaring, despite […]
Continue ReadingInstant Analysis of Today’s October FOMC Statement The FOMC appears to be staying the course with the October FOMC statement. The headlines today and tomorrow morning will be trumpeting the end of QE3, but that was already widely anticipated by the markets and economic analysts. The question is how does the FOMC proceed from here? […]
Continue ReadingUS Outlook Report: Disinflation – What Do the Tea Leaves Say? Last week we lowered our consumer price inflation forecast for 2015 by a half a percentage point to 1.2 percent. A strengthening U.S. dollar combined with large declines in oil and other commodity prices are expected to add to deflationary pressures in the months […]
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