Tag Archives: Lee Adler

Initial Claims Not Great but Not as Bad as Claimed

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The media exhibited much consternation today as economists’ consensus guess on first time unemployment claims turned out to be way too optimistic this week. That raised two questions in my mind. Was the number … Continue reading

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Retail Sales Stay Right on Trend but Economists Get It Wrong Again

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner Retail sales grew modestly and on trend in April. There was no evidence of either a slowing economy or one that is overheating and about to cause conventional inflation measures to move higher. At … Continue reading

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Bubbly Stock Prices Running Away From Improving Jobless Claims

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The trend toward fewer initial unemployment claims continued this week at a pace near the best levels of the past several years. However, spurred on by QE, bubbling stock prices are increasingly ahead of … Continue reading

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More Bad News On Dying US Manufacturing

More Bad News On Dying US Manufacturing- Excise Taxes Drop, But Markets Have Reason To Party On by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner [While US tax collections on everything went gangbusters in April, absolutely through the roof, there was one … Continue reading

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March Factory Order Rebound Doesn’t Change Dismal Trend

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner New factory orders (actual, adjusted for inflation and not seasonally adjusted), which is a broader measure than durable goods orders because it includes non-durables, dropped 3.3% on a year to year basis in March. … Continue reading

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Payrolls Gain But QE Has No Impact On Growth Rate

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The BLS today reported a seasonally adjusted (SA) gain of 165,000 in April nonfarm payrolls, beating the consensus estimates of 140,000 to 155,000 from surveys of economists by mainstream media organizations. Surprise, surprise (not) … Continue reading

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Fed Mortgage Subsidy Drives Buying Panic In Existing Homes To Bubble Levels

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The NAR Pending Home Sales data for March is a measure of current sales as of the date of the contract. It’s the closest thing we have to a real time measure of sales … Continue reading

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Why You Should Take Jobs Data with a Grain of Salt

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner This post is an excerpt of a report posted on October 3, 2012.  For a summary of today’s employment data, see GEI News. Analysis of today’s data is available at GEI Analysis. Given its … Continue reading

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Second Quarter Stronger than Perceived

Here’s Why Everybody Is Wrong About The Second Quarter Being Weak by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner With the quarter now one third complete just about all the pundits are predicting a sharp slowdown in the economy for the April-June … Continue reading

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Does Unemployment Claims Data Indicate There Actually is Some Trickle Down?

Big Improvement in Unemployment Claims Suggests Fed Rigging May Be Trickling Out by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The trend toward fewer initial unemployment claims showed signs of accelerating this week. If that were to continue it would mean that … Continue reading

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Durable Goods Orders Show US Manufacturing Continuing Secular Decline

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner New orders for manufactured durable goods in March decreased $13.1 billion or 5.7 percent to $216.3 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This decrease, down two of the last three months, followed a … Continue reading

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It’s A Housing “Recovery” In Orwellian Terms – Here’s The Reality

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The Commerce Department  today reported really good March home sales  relative the the past 4 years of the housing depression. Media reports included only the seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate, which was 417,000 versus a consensus … Continue reading

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Single-Family and Multi-Family Housing Starts

Single Family Housing Starts Dead But Not Dead Enough – Multifamily Hot, But Not Too Hot by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner Housing starts rose in March. Most of the increase was in the multifamily sector. Single family starts remained … Continue reading

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Retail Sales Rebound in March after Weak January-February

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The headlines and mainstream media stories on retail sales were hysterical and misleading as usual, thanks again to screwy, fictitious seasonally adjusted data.  “Retail Sales in U.S. Dropped in March by Most in Nine … Continue reading

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Initial Claims are Still on Slowly Improving Trend

Jobless Claims Really Jump by 40,000 – Normal For This Week, But Means Fed Blowing Stock Bubble by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The headline jobless claims number is wrong again this week. Last week the headline number was too … Continue reading

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March 2013 Employment Number is No Disaster

Jobs Report, Market Reaction, Fedhead Response All So Predictable, Who Believes This Crap? by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The BLS today reported a seasonally adjusted (SA) gain of 88,000 in March nonfarm payrolls. This time economists were too optimistic, … Continue reading

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Headline Claims Data Is Wrong But Actual Data Does Show Some Slowing

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The headline seasonally adjusted number for initial unemployment claims was more wrong than usual this week, showing a year to year increase of 17,000 when the actual data showed a year to year decline … Continue reading

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Factory Data Shows US Manufacturing Dead In The Water As Headlines Mislead

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The headlines today blared of a 3% increase in factory orders in February, completely obscuring the truth of just how bad the US manufacturing trend is. The real story lies in the fact that … Continue reading

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ISM New Factory Orders Collapse As Fed Creates Another Asset Bubble

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The March headline seasonally adjusted aggregate Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index reading of 51.3 was substantially worse than the consensus expectation of 54, reversing the trend of the professional econoquacks underestimating the economy. Last week … Continue reading

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Federal Spending Sequester Crushes Jobs

Biggest Jump in Unemployment For This Week Since 1996 by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner First time unemployment claims put on their worst performance for this week of March in the past 17 years. The Labor Department reported that the … Continue reading

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