Economic News/Discussion

[jimzinsocal]

Durable goods sector

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/march-...p-january-2009

[jimzinsocal]

UK officially in recession

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news...htm?iid=HP_MPM

[bk94si]

UK officially in recession

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news...htm?iid=HP_MPM

I have no idea how they "officially" measure these things but haven't they been in recession for decades?

[kbohip]

I have no idea how they "officially" measure these things but haven't they been in recession for decades?

No. Ipads and Iphones have been selling well there. Therefore they can not and have not been in a recession.

[AMDScooter]

UK officially in recession

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/news...htm?iid=HP_MPM

Looking at the numbers..

Durable goods orders -4.2%...
Ex-transportation orders down -1.1%...
MBA Purchase Applications down -3.8%...
Refinance applications down -5.6%...

just to roll off a few and knowing the SCOAMF "leads from behind". It sure seems as if we could be following their lead.

[jimzinsocal]

Out today at BLS. Figures for the week. Now we see why some folks are still somewhat reticent to suggest were out of the woods:

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 366,743 in the week ending April 21, a decrease of 3,484 from the previous week. There were 387,867 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.7 percent during the week ending April 14, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,410,877, a decrease of 36,897 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 3.0 percent and the volume was 3,783,787.
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 7 was 6,677,959, a decrease of 87,160 from the previous week.

What will be reported is here

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

In the week ending April 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 389,000. The 4-week moving average was 381,750, an increase of 6,250 from the previous week's revised average of 375,500.

[AMDScooter]

On the "O"ne sided revisions..

Jobless Thursday

ou know, in the private sector, you go to jail for what used they used to winkingly call "managing" earnings - using accounting gimmickry to nudge revenues and expenses from period to period in order to meet analysts' expectations or smooth volatility.

But in the realm of government data reporting, the art of data massage has become impressively robust.

For the 59th week of the last 60, the previous initial jobless claim report was revised upward, from 386,000 to 389,000. And once again, this enables the Labor Department to report a week-over-week decline in new jobless claims, from the adjusted 389,000 to an unadjusted 388,000. Upon next week's revision, this week will almost certainly have shown another increase.

If that sounds familiar, it may be because last week, the government reported a decline of 2,000 (but only after upwardly revising the previous week by 8,000).

Looking back over the last five weeks, the cumulative reported weekly changes (from previous weeks' adjusted data to the new unadjusted numbers) showed a net decline of 1,000, despite an actual cumulative net increase of 24,000. And that's without the 5th revision factored in, at which point the cumulative increase will be closer to 30,000.

In addition to serving as fodder for another round of "Jobless Claims Fall" headlines, this week's underestimate has the additional side effect of avoiding the probably true headline "Jobless Claims Reach New 2012 High" from being written (at least for another week). They started at 390,000 in early January and, assuming next week brings an upward revision of more than 2,000 (revisions have ranged from +3,000 to +10,000 over the last month), then we're already sitting at year-to-date highs.

The lie of unadjusted unemployment claims at least used to be a predictable one. For the last year or so, the upward revision was almost invariably 3,000 or 4,000. While last week's oops was only 3,000, the two preceeding weeks were truly wild pitches that needed revisions of 8,000 and 10,000. So we no longer have the luxury of appplying a known truth adjustment factor to reveal the real data. Alas, the only thing we know for sure is that initial unemployment claims are some amount higher than 388,000.

Update: Ed at Hot Air has more, including some of the early media reports, dutifully noting that jobless claims "eased" last week.

59 of 60 weeks!!! Are you f*cking kidding me??!! Why the hell is someone not investigating this already??

[Dutchcedar]

Looking back over the last five weeks, the cumulative reported weekly changes (from previous weeks' adjusted data to the new unadjusted numbers) showed a net decline of 1,000, despite an actual cumulative net increase of 24,000.

Ya gotta admit... its freakin' genius.

Its a big arsed bag of lies.

But its genius.

Guaranteed good news every week.

Even when it sucks.

Most people haven't a clue.

[jimzinsocal]

Thursdays at Zerohedge have become almost humor as folks try to predict before the report is released...what the correction will be. Like I suggested last week..if this were 1975 well ok...I get the data may be slow coming.
But there isnt a real excuse anymore other than a bad system and perhaps some weasels in the woodpile.
And like Ed..its almost a ritual to see the msm spin on the numbers. If the market goes up at the bell? Stocks are reacting to the numbers. If stocks go down? Thats easy...European fears trigger decline.

[Enmore]

The Euro farce has been on hold so that Nicolas Sarkozy can win the French presidential election. Unfortunately for him, it doesn't look like he's going to do so. The Socialist candidate Francois Hollande was ahead in the first round and will probably pick up more votes from other parties than Sarkozy in the second round on 6th May.

That's good. Cant stand Sarkozy and a Socialist President will hasten the end.

Both the British Prime Minister and German Chancellor refused to see Hollande in the run up to the election. He was actually in London in February to woo some of the 400,000 French ex-pats who work there. There will be a lot more of them once he introduces his proposed 75% top tax rate.

Anyway, I'm sure this snub will not be forgotten privately if he wins. Of course on the surface it'll all be lovey-dovey. Hollande will have a state dinner with Merkel within days of his victory. The French attitude to Germany is basically "keep your friends close, your enemies closer and hide up Germany's rectum".

Meanwhile the Dutch government has collapsed after failing to agree budget cuts in support of the EU's Fiscal Compact. There will be a general election there in a month or two.

The Greeks are going to the polls for their general election the same day as the French. That should be fun too.

[jimzinsocal]

GDP numbers out in half an hour or so. Zerohedge says this

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/previe...s-q1-gdp-print

I guess maybe 2.5 or slightly better vis election year adjustment

[jimzinsocal]

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 (that
is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the
Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2011, real GDP increased 3.0 percent.

2.2 less than estimates

Data illustration via Zero

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...elim%20GDP.jpg

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ I'm wondering if that's little more than inflation. I mean, gasoline has gone up more than 100% in four years, and that's part of the GDP, isn't it?

Maybe if someone crunched the numbers, it would show an actual decline.

[jimzinsocal]

^^they have and viola! Without auto sales that ended in dealer lots the report would have been really dismal. And yes inlated gas prices are in there.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/sell-s...pid-gdp-growth

Not really any good way to spin the report other than remind ourselves its just one quarter....and further example that the enviroment is still pretty weak.

[Dutchcedar]

^^^ About those auto sales... here's a story from a previous quarter's auto purchases...