Economic Reality Starting to Hit Markets
After many months of relatively high expectations, now hit by a run of not-so-great economic news, this week global stock markets, commodities and more all appear to be in some varying degrees of a corrective mode.
See also recent posts with the tags: "Growth Recessions" and "Double Dips"
CNBC
Pisani: More Bad Signs for US Economy
A deceleration in the US economy. Whether you are looking at today's April Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, or housing starts and building permits, the economic data was all weaker than expected.
Home Depot [HD 37.30
0.32 (+0.87%)
] posted a negative same store sales number, even though they raised full year guidance. Wal-Mart posted a negative comp, again.
The stock market may be just off new highs, but the country doesn't believe it, and with good reason: no significant job growth. There was a chart I saw a short while ago. It was the number of jobs relative to the number of people in the country, and it showed that it was still in a trough.
I'm not talking about how many people are looking for jobs, but how many jobs are there relative to the number of people in the country...it hasn't really recovered meaningfully. So there isn't a lot of jobs out there, still.
The unemployment number is deceptively light - I don't care what sub-metric you're looking at: stopped looking for work, underemployed, it doesn't matter. We've lost a lot of jobs, and haven't gained them back.
The economy is robust in some spots, and dead in others...
CNBC
Stocks Hit One Month Low, Oil Falters on Recovery Fears
World stocks fell to a one-month low on Tuesday as data spurred a new wave of doubts over the global recovery and on worries about euro zone nations, while oil tumbled on the economic outlook and a firmer dollar.
Econoday.com
Industrial ProductionReleased on 5/17/2011 9:15:00 AM For Apr, 2011 PriorConsensusConsensus RangeActual Production - M/M change0.8 %0.4 %-0.4 % to 0.8 %0.0 %Capacity Utilization Rate - Level77.4 %77.6 %77.0 % to 77.9 %76.9 % Highlights
Industrial production surprised on the downside for April with weakness led by a drop in auto assemblies. Overall industrial production in April was unchanged, following a revised 0.7 percent gain the prior month (originally up 0.8 percent). Analysts had called for a 0.4 percent advance for the latest month. Notably, manufacturing posted a 0.4 percent decline in April, following a 0.6 percent gain in March.
Econoday.com
Housing Starts
Released on 5/17/2011 8:30:00 AM For Apr, 2011 PriorConsensusConsensus RangeActual Starts - Level - SAAR0.549 M0.570 M0.549 M to 0.583 M0.523 MPermits - Level - SAAR0.594 M 0.551 M Highlights
Housing activity is continuing to confound and is refusing to establish any kind of uptrend. Housing starts in April fell back 10.6 percent, following a revised rebound of 12.9 percent in March. The April annualized pace of 0.523 million units posted below the median market forecast for 0.570 million units and is down 23.9 percent on a year-ago basis. The drop in April was led by a 24.1 percent fall in the volatile multifamily starts component, following a 30.8 percent jump in March. The single-family component dipped 5.1 percent after rebounding 7.0 percent in March.
Calculated Risk: Total Housing Starts Graph
