The Lehmann Letter ©
The blogger will be on mid-winter break until February 1st.
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Steady Progress
The Lehmann Letter ©
A week ago this blog mentioned the Census Bureau’s wholesale sales and inventories report. It indicated that manufacturing had turned an important corner.
Two announcements today confirm that observation.
The Census Bureau released data showing that sales and inventories for manufacturing and trade both grew in November and that sales gained more than inventories: http://www.census.gov/mtis/www/mtis_current.html . Sales grew for for over six months following nine months of decline, and inventories gained for three months following a year of decline. This demonstrates that business is sufficiently confident of its sales gain to begin rebuilding stocks of goods. That’s a crucial turning point.
The Federal Reserve said that both industrial production and capacity utilization grew: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/default.htm . Industry is now operating at 72% of capacity. If you superimpose that figure on the chart below, you can see that industry is slowly climbing out of the ditch.
Capacity Utilization
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
There’s definitely progress to report.
(The chart was taken from http://www.beyourowneconomist.com. [Click on Seminars and then Charts.] Go there for additional charts on the economy and a list of economic indicators.)
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
A week ago this blog mentioned the Census Bureau’s wholesale sales and inventories report. It indicated that manufacturing had turned an important corner.
Two announcements today confirm that observation.
The Census Bureau released data showing that sales and inventories for manufacturing and trade both grew in November and that sales gained more than inventories: http://www.census.gov/mtis/www/mtis_current.html . Sales grew for for over six months following nine months of decline, and inventories gained for three months following a year of decline. This demonstrates that business is sufficiently confident of its sales gain to begin rebuilding stocks of goods. That’s a crucial turning point.
The Federal Reserve said that both industrial production and capacity utilization grew: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/Current/default.htm . Industry is now operating at 72% of capacity. If you superimpose that figure on the chart below, you can see that industry is slowly climbing out of the ditch.
Capacity Utilization
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
There’s definitely progress to report.
(The chart was taken from http://www.beyourowneconomist.com. [Click on Seminars and then Charts.] Go there for additional charts on the economy and a list of economic indicators.)
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Autos & Debt
The Lehmann Letter ©
The Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Federal Reserve have released their December and November figures for new-vehicle sales and consumer credit.
You can find new-vehicle sales data at http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp . Scroll down to the “Motor vehicles” link and go to table six of the spreadsheet. You’ll see that new-vehicle sales were 11.2 million in December.
Now compare that to the historical data in the following chart. There’s been a gradual recovery from the 9.2 million low of last April, but it’s been a slow ascent. New-vehicle sales remain at lows not seen since the 1981-82 recession and earlier slumps.
New-vehicle Sales
Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
Meanwhile, consumer credit fell $210 billion in November. You can view the report at http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/Current/ . (This is revolving credit such as auto loans and credit cards and does not include mortgage credit.) The following chart reveals the unprecedented extent to which households have been repaying their debts. [Negative borrowing (a drop in consumer credit outstanding) = Loan repayment.]. There has been no period in the past when households repaid their debts at such a furious pace.
Consumer Credit
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
It’s hard to imagine the economy enjoying a robust recovery without a strong rally in the automobile industry. But it’s hard to see how that can happen while households are busy repaying their debts. Auto loans and auto purchases go hand in hand.
Now households are trying to get their balance sheets in order: Reduce debt and boost liquidity. That’s incompatible with the scale of new borrowing required to pull new-vehicle sales out of the ditch.
(The charts were taken from http://www.beyourowneconomist.com. [Click on Seminars and then Charts.] Go there for additional charts on the economy and a list of economic indicators.)
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
The Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Federal Reserve have released their December and November figures for new-vehicle sales and consumer credit.
You can find new-vehicle sales data at http://www.bea.gov/national/index.htm#gdp . Scroll down to the “Motor vehicles” link and go to table six of the spreadsheet. You’ll see that new-vehicle sales were 11.2 million in December.
Now compare that to the historical data in the following chart. There’s been a gradual recovery from the 9.2 million low of last April, but it’s been a slow ascent. New-vehicle sales remain at lows not seen since the 1981-82 recession and earlier slumps.
New-vehicle Sales
Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
Meanwhile, consumer credit fell $210 billion in November. You can view the report at http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/Current/ . (This is revolving credit such as auto loans and credit cards and does not include mortgage credit.) The following chart reveals the unprecedented extent to which households have been repaying their debts. [Negative borrowing (a drop in consumer credit outstanding) = Loan repayment.]. There has been no period in the past when households repaid their debts at such a furious pace.
Consumer Credit
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
It’s hard to imagine the economy enjoying a robust recovery without a strong rally in the automobile industry. But it’s hard to see how that can happen while households are busy repaying their debts. Auto loans and auto purchases go hand in hand.
Now households are trying to get their balance sheets in order: Reduce debt and boost liquidity. That’s incompatible with the scale of new borrowing required to pull new-vehicle sales out of the ditch.
(The charts were taken from http://www.beyourowneconomist.com. [Click on Seminars and then Charts.] Go there for additional charts on the economy and a list of economic indicators.)
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Friday, January 8, 2010
Accentuate the Positive
The Lehmann Letter ©
Today’s employment report from the BLS disappointed many: http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
December employment fell by 85,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 10.0%.
But manufacturing overtime held steady at 3.4 hours/week, a big improvement over the third quarter’s 3.0 hours/week. That’s a signal that manufacturing is recovering.
Today’s Census Bureau report on wholesale sales and inventories confirmed the upward trend: http://www2.census.gov/wholesale/pdf/mwts/currentwhl.pdf
Sales fell throughout the first half of the year, began to strengthen in the third quarter and then made a big gain in November. In response business also began rebuilding inventories in November. That’s significant because businesses had depleted their stocks of goods throughout the year, even in the third quarter when sales had begun to recover. Now business has regained sufficient confidence in sales-improvement to rebuild inventories. That’s a good sign.
More overtime, improved sales and inventory buildup. They should lead to employment gains before long.
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Today’s employment report from the BLS disappointed many: http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
December employment fell by 85,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained at 10.0%.
But manufacturing overtime held steady at 3.4 hours/week, a big improvement over the third quarter’s 3.0 hours/week. That’s a signal that manufacturing is recovering.
Today’s Census Bureau report on wholesale sales and inventories confirmed the upward trend: http://www2.census.gov/wholesale/pdf/mwts/currentwhl.pdf
Sales fell throughout the first half of the year, began to strengthen in the third quarter and then made a big gain in November. In response business also began rebuilding inventories in November. That’s significant because businesses had depleted their stocks of goods throughout the year, even in the third quarter when sales had begun to recover. Now business has regained sufficient confidence in sales-improvement to rebuild inventories. That’s a good sign.
More overtime, improved sales and inventory buildup. They should lead to employment gains before long.
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Vice-Chairman Kohn
The Lehmann Letter ©
Yesterday’s post discussed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s January 3 speech at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association.
Vice-Chairman Donald Kohn also addressed the Association that day:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/kohn20100103a.htm
He said:
“Given the heavy costs that have resulted from the financial crisis, the question naturally arises as to whether the circumstances that caused the crisis could have been avoided…... But against this important objective we need to balance the potential costs and uncertainties associated with using monetary policy for that purpose, especially in light of the difficulty in judging the appropriateness of asset valuations.
“One type of cost arises because monetary policy is a blunt instrument. Increases in interest rates damp activity across a wide variety of sectors, many of which may not be experiencing speculative activity……..”
In other words if the Fed had raised interest rates to prevent the 2002 – 2006 real-estate bubble, it might have hurt the overall economy. Monetary policy is a blunt instrument, not a selective tool.
That gets to the heart of the matter. Expansionary monetary policy during the 2001 dot-com recession ignited the real-estate blaze. Real estate was strong when the Fed depressed rates to boost overall economic activity. The Fed’s easy-money policy could not distinguish between those areas of the economy requiring assistance and those that did not.
The point: If raising interest rates to stop a bubble is too blunt an instrument, why is it OK to risk a bubble by lowering rates?
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Yesterday’s post discussed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s January 3 speech at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association.
Vice-Chairman Donald Kohn also addressed the Association that day:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/kohn20100103a.htm
He said:
“Given the heavy costs that have resulted from the financial crisis, the question naturally arises as to whether the circumstances that caused the crisis could have been avoided…... But against this important objective we need to balance the potential costs and uncertainties associated with using monetary policy for that purpose, especially in light of the difficulty in judging the appropriateness of asset valuations.
“One type of cost arises because monetary policy is a blunt instrument. Increases in interest rates damp activity across a wide variety of sectors, many of which may not be experiencing speculative activity……..”
In other words if the Fed had raised interest rates to prevent the 2002 – 2006 real-estate bubble, it might have hurt the overall economy. Monetary policy is a blunt instrument, not a selective tool.
That gets to the heart of the matter. Expansionary monetary policy during the 2001 dot-com recession ignited the real-estate blaze. Real estate was strong when the Fed depressed rates to boost overall economic activity. The Fed’s easy-money policy could not distinguish between those areas of the economy requiring assistance and those that did not.
The point: If raising interest rates to stop a bubble is too blunt an instrument, why is it OK to risk a bubble by lowering rates?
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Chairman Speaks
The Lehmann Letter ©
On January 3 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke before the annual meeting of the American Economic Association:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100103a.htm
Mr. Bernanke concluded his remarks by saying:
“My objective today has been to review the evidence on the link between monetary policy in the early part of the past decade and the rapid rise in house prices that occurred at roughly the same time. The direct linkages, at least, are weak. Because monetary policy works with a lag, policymakers' response to changes in inflation and other economic variables should depend on whether those changes are expected to be temporary or longer-lasting. When that point is taken into account, policy during that period--though certainly accommodative--does not appear to have been inappropriate, given the state of the economy and policymakers' medium-term objectives. House prices began to rise in the late 1990s, and although the most rapid price increases occurred when short-term interest rates were at their lowest levels, the magnitude of house price gains seems too large to be readily explainable by the stance of monetary policy alone. Moreover, cross-country evidence shows no significant relationship between monetary policies and the pace of house price increases.
“What policy implications should we draw? I noted earlier that the most important source of lower initial monthly payments, which allowed more people to enter the housing market and bid for properties, was not the general level of short-term interest rates, but the increasing use of more exotic types of mortgages and the associated decline of underwriting standards. That conclusion suggests that the best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, not monetary. Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders' risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates. Moreover, regulators, supervisors, and the private sector could have more effectively addressed building risk concentrations and inadequate risk-management practices without necessarily having had to make a judgment about the sustainability of house price increases. “
In other words, lax mortgage-market regulation rather than low interest rates generated the 2002 – 2006 housing bubble.
Take a look at the following chart.
New Home Sales
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
Home sales slumped during earlier recessions but not in the 2001 recession. Cutting interest rates was an appropriate remedy for the previous dips because drooping home sales had been an important part of those downturns. When interest rates fell, housing snapped back to normal.
But housing did not slump during the 2001 dot-com bust. It remained at very high levels. When the Fed cut rates, housing surged into the stratosphere. What had been a high plateau became a peak.
That doesn’t mean that lax lending did not play an important role in the 2002 - 2006 housing bubble. But it does reinforce the question: Was the 2001 - 2002 interest-rate reduction warranted?
Which raises a related question, “Could the Fed have refused to cut rates in the midst of the dot-com crash?” The political realities say, “No.” If that’s the case, the real-estate bubble was unavoidable under current monetary policy procedures and expectations.
Only a top-to-bottom review of those procedures and expectations, involving Congress and the president as well as the Fed, could create the appropriate climate for a more flexible approach to monetary policy. That might help avoid another debacle like the 2002 – 2006 real-estate bubble.
(The chart was taken from http://www.beyourowneconomist.com. [Click on Seminars and then Charts.] Go there for additional charts on the economy and a list of economic indicators.)
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
On January 3 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke before the annual meeting of the American Economic Association:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100103a.htm
Mr. Bernanke concluded his remarks by saying:
“My objective today has been to review the evidence on the link between monetary policy in the early part of the past decade and the rapid rise in house prices that occurred at roughly the same time. The direct linkages, at least, are weak. Because monetary policy works with a lag, policymakers' response to changes in inflation and other economic variables should depend on whether those changes are expected to be temporary or longer-lasting. When that point is taken into account, policy during that period--though certainly accommodative--does not appear to have been inappropriate, given the state of the economy and policymakers' medium-term objectives. House prices began to rise in the late 1990s, and although the most rapid price increases occurred when short-term interest rates were at their lowest levels, the magnitude of house price gains seems too large to be readily explainable by the stance of monetary policy alone. Moreover, cross-country evidence shows no significant relationship between monetary policies and the pace of house price increases.
“What policy implications should we draw? I noted earlier that the most important source of lower initial monthly payments, which allowed more people to enter the housing market and bid for properties, was not the general level of short-term interest rates, but the increasing use of more exotic types of mortgages and the associated decline of underwriting standards. That conclusion suggests that the best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, not monetary. Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders' risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates. Moreover, regulators, supervisors, and the private sector could have more effectively addressed building risk concentrations and inadequate risk-management practices without necessarily having had to make a judgment about the sustainability of house price increases. “
In other words, lax mortgage-market regulation rather than low interest rates generated the 2002 – 2006 housing bubble.
Take a look at the following chart.
New Home Sales
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Recessions shaded
Home sales slumped during earlier recessions but not in the 2001 recession. Cutting interest rates was an appropriate remedy for the previous dips because drooping home sales had been an important part of those downturns. When interest rates fell, housing snapped back to normal.
But housing did not slump during the 2001 dot-com bust. It remained at very high levels. When the Fed cut rates, housing surged into the stratosphere. What had been a high plateau became a peak.
That doesn’t mean that lax lending did not play an important role in the 2002 - 2006 housing bubble. But it does reinforce the question: Was the 2001 - 2002 interest-rate reduction warranted?
Which raises a related question, “Could the Fed have refused to cut rates in the midst of the dot-com crash?” The political realities say, “No.” If that’s the case, the real-estate bubble was unavoidable under current monetary policy procedures and expectations.
Only a top-to-bottom review of those procedures and expectations, involving Congress and the president as well as the Fed, could create the appropriate climate for a more flexible approach to monetary policy. That might help avoid another debacle like the 2002 – 2006 real-estate bubble.
(The chart was taken from http://www.beyourowneconomist.com. [Click on Seminars and then Charts.] Go there for additional charts on the economy and a list of economic indicators.)
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Boulder in the Road
The Lehmann Letter ©
This blog has discussed the foreclosure crisis in earlier postings. Foreclosure is a tragedy for the families who lose their homes. It also impedes economic recovery by prolonging the real-estate slump. Foreclosed properties drag down home values and residential construction by swelling the glut of unsold houses. The larger the glut, the slower the recovery in real-estate prices and the smaller the incentive to build new homes.
See Peter S. Goodman’s January 2 New York Times article for an excellent commentary on the problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/business/economy/02modify.html
Mr. Goodman points out that the Obama administration’s efforts to relieve the real-estate crisis by reducing borrowers” interest payments have not effectively reduced foreclosures.
Mr. Goodman says:
“Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.”
Mr Goodman continues:
“In 2008, more than 1.7 million homes were “lost” through foreclosures, short sales or deeds in lieu of foreclosure, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Last year, more than two million homes were lost, and Economy.com expects that this year’s number will swell to 2.4 million……
“’I don’t think there’s any way for Treasury to tweak their plan, or to cajole, pressure or entice servicers to do more to address the crisis,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “For some folks, it is doing more harm than good, because ultimately, at the end of the day, they are going back into the foreclosure morass.’”
“Mr. Zandi argues that the administration needs a new initiative that attacks a primary source of foreclosures: the roughly 15 million American homeowners who are underwater, meaning they owe the bank more than their home is worth.
“Increasingly, such borrowers are inclined to walk away and accept foreclosure, rather than continuing to make payments on properties in which they own no equity. A paper by researchers at the Amherst Securities Group suggests that being underwater “’is a far more important predictor of defaults than unemployment.’”
And here’s the point:
“Mr. Zandi proposes that the Treasury Department push banks to write down some loan balances by reimbursing the companies for their losses. He pointedly rejects the notion that government ought to get out of the way and let foreclosures work their way through the market, saying that course risks a surge of foreclosures and declining house prices that could pull the economy back into recession.”
Finally, Mr. Goodman makes clear that the Obama administration in general and Treasury Secretary Geithner in particular understood the risk they were taking when they failed to provide an avenue for the reduction of home-loan balances:
“The biggest source of concern remains the growing numbers of underwater borrowers — now about one-third of all American homeowners with mortgages, according to Economy.com. The Obama administration clearly grasped the threat as it created its program, yet opted not to focus on writing down loan balances.
“’This is a conscious choice we made, not to start with principal reduction,” Mr. Geithner told the Congressional Oversight Panel. “We thought it would be dramatically more expensive for the American taxpayer, harder to justify, create much greater risk of unfairness.’”
Perhaps……. But those foreclosed homes – and all the future foreclosures that will be dumped on the market – now sit and will sit like a boulder on the road to economic recovery.
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
This blog has discussed the foreclosure crisis in earlier postings. Foreclosure is a tragedy for the families who lose their homes. It also impedes economic recovery by prolonging the real-estate slump. Foreclosed properties drag down home values and residential construction by swelling the glut of unsold houses. The larger the glut, the slower the recovery in real-estate prices and the smaller the incentive to build new homes.
See Peter S. Goodman’s January 2 New York Times article for an excellent commentary on the problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/business/economy/02modify.html
Mr. Goodman points out that the Obama administration’s efforts to relieve the real-estate crisis by reducing borrowers” interest payments have not effectively reduced foreclosures.
Mr. Goodman says:
“Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.”
Mr Goodman continues:
“In 2008, more than 1.7 million homes were “lost” through foreclosures, short sales or deeds in lieu of foreclosure, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Last year, more than two million homes were lost, and Economy.com expects that this year’s number will swell to 2.4 million……
“’I don’t think there’s any way for Treasury to tweak their plan, or to cajole, pressure or entice servicers to do more to address the crisis,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “For some folks, it is doing more harm than good, because ultimately, at the end of the day, they are going back into the foreclosure morass.’”
“Mr. Zandi argues that the administration needs a new initiative that attacks a primary source of foreclosures: the roughly 15 million American homeowners who are underwater, meaning they owe the bank more than their home is worth.
“Increasingly, such borrowers are inclined to walk away and accept foreclosure, rather than continuing to make payments on properties in which they own no equity. A paper by researchers at the Amherst Securities Group suggests that being underwater “’is a far more important predictor of defaults than unemployment.’”
And here’s the point:
“Mr. Zandi proposes that the Treasury Department push banks to write down some loan balances by reimbursing the companies for their losses. He pointedly rejects the notion that government ought to get out of the way and let foreclosures work their way through the market, saying that course risks a surge of foreclosures and declining house prices that could pull the economy back into recession.”
Finally, Mr. Goodman makes clear that the Obama administration in general and Treasury Secretary Geithner in particular understood the risk they were taking when they failed to provide an avenue for the reduction of home-loan balances:
“The biggest source of concern remains the growing numbers of underwater borrowers — now about one-third of all American homeowners with mortgages, according to Economy.com. The Obama administration clearly grasped the threat as it created its program, yet opted not to focus on writing down loan balances.
“’This is a conscious choice we made, not to start with principal reduction,” Mr. Geithner told the Congressional Oversight Panel. “We thought it would be dramatically more expensive for the American taxpayer, harder to justify, create much greater risk of unfairness.’”
Perhaps……. But those foreclosed homes – and all the future foreclosures that will be dumped on the market – now sit and will sit like a boulder on the road to economic recovery.
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Monday, January 4, 2010
January Publication Schedule
The Lehmann Letter ©
Here’s the publication schedule for some of January 2010’s most important economic indicators.
Go to http://www.beyourowneconomist.com/ and click on Seminars, then click on Economic Indicators to navigate the sites that provide the data and click on Charts for a visual presentation that you can update.
PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
January 2010
Source (* below)…………Series Description…………Day & Date
Quarterly Data
BEA…………………………GDP……………………...……Fri, 29th
Monthly Data
ISM………………….Purchasing managers’ index……….Mon, 4th
BLS………………………….Employment………………..… Fri, 8th
Fed………………..Consumer credit…...(Approximate).Fri, 8th
Census……………………...Balance of trade………………Tue, 12th
Census……………………...Retail trade…………………….Thu, 14th
Census……………………...Inventories……………………..Thu, 14th
Fed…………………………..Industrial production………….Fri, 15th
Fed………………………….Capacity utilization…………….Fri, 15th
BLS………………………….Consumer prices……………...Fri, 15th
BLS………………………….Producer prices……………….Wed, 20th
Census……………………..Housing starts………………….Wed, 20th
Conf Bd…………………….Leading indicators…………….Thu, 21st
Conf Bd…………………….Consumer confidence………… Thu, 21st
NAR…………………………Existing-home sales…….…….Mon, 25th
Census……………………..New-home sales……………….Wed, 27th
Census…………………….Capital goods……………….…..Thu, 28th
* BEA = Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce
* BLS = Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor
* Census = U.S. Bureau of the Census
* Conf Bd = Conference Board
* Fed = Federal Reserve System
* ISM = Institute for Supply Management
* NAR = National Association of Realtors
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
Here’s the publication schedule for some of January 2010’s most important economic indicators.
Go to http://www.beyourowneconomist.com/ and click on Seminars, then click on Economic Indicators to navigate the sites that provide the data and click on Charts for a visual presentation that you can update.
PUBLICATION SCHEDULE
January 2010
Source (* below)…………Series Description…………Day & Date
Quarterly Data
BEA…………………………GDP……………………...……Fri, 29th
Monthly Data
ISM………………….Purchasing managers’ index……….Mon, 4th
BLS………………………….Employment………………..… Fri, 8th
Fed………………..Consumer credit…...(Approximate).Fri, 8th
Census……………………...Balance of trade………………Tue, 12th
Census……………………...Retail trade…………………….Thu, 14th
Census……………………...Inventories……………………..Thu, 14th
Fed…………………………..Industrial production………….Fri, 15th
Fed………………………….Capacity utilization…………….Fri, 15th
BLS………………………….Consumer prices……………...Fri, 15th
BLS………………………….Producer prices……………….Wed, 20th
Census……………………..Housing starts………………….Wed, 20th
Conf Bd…………………….Leading indicators…………….Thu, 21st
Conf Bd…………………….Consumer confidence………… Thu, 21st
NAR…………………………Existing-home sales…….…….Mon, 25th
Census……………………..New-home sales……………….Wed, 27th
Census…………………….Capital goods……………….…..Thu, 28th
* BEA = Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce
* BLS = Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor
* Census = U.S. Bureau of the Census
* Conf Bd = Conference Board
* Fed = Federal Reserve System
* ISM = Institute for Supply Management
* NAR = National Association of Realtors
© 2010 Michael B. Lehmann
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