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Author Archives: Steven Hansen
Is the USA Facing a Labor Shortage?
Written by Steven Hansen The difficulty filling positions that some employers are already experiencing can be seen in the rising number unfilled job openings at the end of each month. The latest BLS survey reveals that there were 3,844,000 job … Continue reading
Posted in Employment, Weekly Economic Summary, aa syndication
Tagged Economy, employment, GDP, labor shortage, recovery, Steven Hansen, unemployment, weekly review
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Durable Goods New Orders Rebound in April 2013
Written by Steven Hansen The headlines say the durable goods sector improved significantly in April 2013 – rebounding from a very poor March. This analysis is stronger than the headlines – but is in conflict with industrial production data from … Continue reading
Posted in Durable Goods, aa syndication
Tagged aircraft, Census Bureau, computers, defense spending, durable goods, electronics, manufacturing, Steven Hansen
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April 2013 New Home Sales Has a Good Month
Written by John Lounsbury and Steven Hansen New home sales data for April 2013 was better than last month’s data – but the data remains very noisy and needs to be averaged to make any sense of it. If one … Continue reading
April 2013 Existing Home Sales Show Above Average Growth
Written by Steven Hansen The headlines for existing home sales say that sales improved in April . Our analysis shows sales (based on comparing year-over-year growth) is a little above average for the growth evidenced over the last 12 months. … Continue reading
Stratfor: Syria’s Outside Patronage, a New Offensive for the Regime
The battle for the Syrian city of Al-Qusayr, which came under regime artillery fire May 19, is actually part of a larger battle for the highly coveted Homs governorate. As we noted in 2012, the battle has wide-reaching ramifications for … Continue reading
CFNAI Super Index Mixed In April 2013
Written by Steven Hansen The economy was almost statistically unchanged in April 2013 – and this index is suggesting the economy is expanding just below the historical trend rate of growth – with the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) … Continue reading
Should You Tell Your Kid to Drop Out of High School?
Written by Steven Hansen There have been several posts over the past few weeks discussing college / university education. Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius stated: [T]he faster job growth among college graduates is entirely due to faster growth in the … Continue reading
Posted in Employment, Weekly Economic Summary, aa syndication
Tagged college, dropout, Economy, employment, GDP, high school, recovery, Steven Hansen, unemployment, university, weekly review
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April 2013 Leading Economic Index Forecasts Continuing Economic Expansion
Written by Steven Hansen The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. improved 0.6% in April to 95.0 (2004 = 100). Overall, the index value has been slowly trending up, and one month is not a trend. This … Continue reading
Posted in LEI, aa syndication
Tagged CEI, Conference Board, economic indicator, Economy, ECRI, forecast, LEI, recovery, Steven Hansen
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May 2013 Philly Fed Business Outlook Goes Negative
Written by Steven Hansen The Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey fell into negative (contraction) – after two months in positive territory. This survey has been negative for 9 of the last 13 months. Key element new orders slipped further into … Continue reading
Posted in Manufacturing, Retail & Business Sales, aa syndication
Tagged backlog, business, conditions, manufacturing, new orders, orders, Philly Fed, philly_man, Steven Hansen
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Residential Building Sector Growth Continues in April 2013
Written by Steven Hansen Residential building permits and construction completions in April 2013 continues to show the industry growth. Our analysis paints a slightly different picture than the headline data. Apartment building permits comparing April 2012 to April 2013 are … Continue reading
April 2013 Sea Container Counts Are Still Contracting
Written by Steven Hansen For the second month in a row, both import and export container counts are contracting year-over-year – comparing same months in 2012 and 2013. Economically intuitive imports however are “less bad” (but are still growing year-to-date); … Continue reading
Posted in Transport, aa syndication
Tagged container, exports, imports, rail, shipping, Steven Hansen, traffic, truck
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April 2013 Industrial Production Soft – But Still In a Growth Trend
Written by Steven Hansen The headlines say Industrial Production (IP) declined 0.5% in April 2013 and up 1.9% year-over-year. Econintersect‘s analysis using the unadjusted data is that IP was also showed a decline of 0.5% month-over-month but the year-over-year was … Continue reading
May 2013 Empire State Survey Goes Negative – Under Expectations
Written by Steven Hansen The Empire State Manufacturing Survey (manufacturing in New York State) in May 2013 shows manufacturing is contracting after expanding for the previous three months in a row. This noisy index has moved from 17.1 (May), 2.3 … Continue reading
April 2013 Producer Price Index Shows Almost No Year-over-Year Growth
Written by Steven Hansen The Producer Price Index year-over-year inflation is disappearing.. The BLS reported that the Producer Price Index (PPI) finished goods prices year-over-year inflation rate fell from 1.1% in March to 0.6% in April 2013 – with the … Continue reading
Export / Import Price Deflation in April 2013
Written by Steven Hansen In April 2013, year-over-year price deflation continues in import prices for 11 of the last 12 months . Export price price are also deflating this month: with imports down 0.5% month-over-month, down 2.6% year-over-year and exports … Continue reading
Posted in Prices - PPI, CPI and More, aa syndication
Tagged agriculture, BLS, commodities, export, food, import, OIL, prices, Steven Hansen
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Stratfor: The Decline of the Colorado River
An amendment to a standing water treaty between the United States and Mexico has received publicity over the past six months as an example of progress in water sharing agreements. But the amendment, called Minute 319, is simply a glimpse into … Continue reading
March 2013 Business Inventories and Sales Continues to Show Little Improvement
Written by Steven Hansen Econintersect‘s analysis of final business sales data (retail plus wholesale plus manufacturing) for March 2013 is closer to the headline data. business sales with this month’s data is continuing to trend less good (positive growth, slower … Continue reading
Retail Sales Stronger than Expected in April 2013
Written by Steven Hansen Retail sales came in much stronger than anticipated. the unadjusted data was stronger than the seasonally adjusted data this month; the headline numbers show backward revisions were slightly upward; the weakness in the data was gasoline … Continue reading
Posted in Retail & Business Sales, aa syndication
Tagged recovery, retail sales, Steven Hansen, u.s. census bureau
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Using the Jobs Report To Forecast the Economy
Written by Steven Hansen It continues to amaze me of the love affair between Wall Street and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment situation report – aka the Jobs Report. It is nearly a worthless data set in real … Continue reading
Posted in Weekly Economic Summary, aa syndication
Tagged BLS, Economy, employment, jobs, Steven Hansen, weekly review
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March 2013 Wholesale Sales Contraction Continues
Written by Steven Hansen March 2013 wholesale sales and inventories data continues to go up one month, down the next. This data series is very noisy, and suffers from data gathering anomalies as well as poor headline methodolgy. This analysis … Continue reading
