Tag Archives: gold

Economic numbers this week: First, consumer sentiment (UMCSENT).  It looks pretty awful – lowest sentiment levels since 2012. Moves like this don’t happen very often, and they precede market “corrections.” Unlike retail sales, consumer sentiment has not recovered back to pre-pandemic levels. Second, retail sales (RSXFS); in December, it fell -2.03% m/m, which is a…

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First – a look at 2021:   Here’s the PPIACO – this is the raw index, which dates back to 1913. And as far as I know, it is unchanged – unlike the CPI, which has been…adjusted, in order to remove “inflation” from the inflation index.   Right, so since the recovery from the ’08…

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Every year, friend-of-the-site David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year is no exception. Poignant and delightfully acerbic when necessary, considering the troubling times. As with past years, he selected Peak Prosperity as the site where it is published in full. It is longer…

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So, the markets were mostly waiting for the (Friday) CPI this week: the print was +0.78% m/m, which is a 9.3%/year annualized rate. It was slightly higher than expected, and overall, the worst since 1982 – even with the manipulated-in-1992 CPI, which has been carefully crafted to remove signs of inflation from the inflation-indicator. Even…

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Unlike last week, there was no single driver of prices. At least not that I could see. In economic news, there was the payrolls report [headline: +210k +0.14% m/m – vs +300-600k expected], durable goods [orders -.41% m/m, shipments +1.55% m/m], and autos/light truck sales [-0.73% m/m, heavy trucks +8.8% m/m]. Auto sales are still…

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The price movements this week were entirely dominated by what happened on Friday. OMICRON! Let’s start with crude oil. Check out the $10 drop in the price of the master resource on the half-day of trading on Friday. It was a remarkable move. Crude is now in a reasonably strong downtrend. On Tuesday, there was…

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There were three economic series out this week: Retail Sales [+1.67% m/m, +14.03% y/y], Industrial Production [+1.61% m/m, +4.89% y/y], and Housing Starts [-0.66% m/m, +0.39% y/y]. The Retail Sales number hit an all time high – note much of that move is due to inflation; sales are up 24% over pre-pandemic levels. Even deflated…

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This week was about inflation; first the PPI (PPIACO) hit on Tuesday: headline +2.04% m/m [24% annualized!], and then the CPI (CPIAUCSL) landed on Wednesday: headline +0.94% m/m [11.28% annualized!] Both numbers were absurd, multi-decade highs. Hey so about that “transitory inflation” thing – how’s that working again? Inflation expectations still under control? Chair Powell…

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This week’s economic data: Payrolls: +531k headline, reasonably positive Auto/Light Truck Sales: +5.96% m/m, -26.3% y/y; heavy truck sales +9.025 m/m. Slight recovery. Wolf goes into more detail about the payrolls numbers. My summary: https://wolfstreet.com/2021/11/05/jobs-data-shows-something-big-changed-in-this-monstrously-overstimulated-economy/ Consumer spending surpassed its pre-pandemic record in Q1 2021 Private investment in buildings, equipment, and the like started setting new…

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We saw some negative economic data this week: Auto/light truck sales: -6.8% m/m, -33.9% y/y. Auto sales continue to plunge. “Shortages”. The drop in auto sales is nothing short of spectacular: peak of 18m in early 2021, currently at 12m. GDP: +1.87% q/q, +8.78% y/y. That sounds good, but the expectation was for a vastly…

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