The table below itemizes the major events and analysis this week. The full review article is Weighing the Economic News: Borders’ Bankruptcy.
Weekly Economic Scorecard:
| Item | Headline | Analysis |
| Consumer Metrics | Discretionary spending by Joe Sixpack continuing to weaken. | |
| January Leading Economic Index | Up 0.1% | Index continues to have no real baseline but agree that economy six months from today will be improved. |
| February Philly Fed Business Survey | Increased to historically high range | The detail shows improvement but not much different then 2010 highs. |
| January Consumer Price Index | Up 1.6% YoY | Energy big contributor to this rise. |
| January Sea Container Counts | Up 13% | Indicates a growing trade gap. |
| January Producer Price Index | Up 3.6% YoY | Energy big contributor to this rise. |
| January Residential Construction | Down 10.4% MoM | Residential construction may be bottoming |
| January Industrial Production | Down 0.3% | Industrial Production is trending up even though it might be flat in January. |
| January Retail Sales | Up 7.8% YoY | After removing auto sales, this increase likely is inflation. |
| January Retail Sales | Up 0.3% MoM | Retail sales weak on a per capita basis |
| December Business Sales | Up 1.1% | Economic growth seen in these numbers |
| February Empire State Manufacturing Survey | Up 3.5 points | Key elements less good but still shows expanding economy |
| Dollar’s Future | Base data shows dollar’s decline dynamics. | |
| BRIC Decoupling? | Inflation is beginning to play a big role in international investing. | |
| Asia Trade | Infrastructure limiting ability to expand in poorer Asian countries. | |
| Opinion: Food Inflation in India | Sunil Chandra argues food price inflation is helping rural farmers. | |
| Opinion: EU Stability | Dirk Ehnts argues EU at a cross roads – fighting inflation / stable Euro vs helping countries in distress | |
| Opinion: FDIC | Yves Smith argues FDIC was designed to fail | |
| Opinion: China & Spain | Michael Pettis argues China GDP growth will be high this year | |
| Investing: Emerging Markets | Elliott Morss suggests where to put your money to hedge against emerging market risks | |
| Investing: BRICS | Clive Corcoran points to money outflows from BRICS | |
| Investing Summary | Jeff Miller reviews investing good, bad and the ugly. |
Comments are closed.