Gary Thayer
Gary Thayer
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Historically, when we see confidence decline, we have to watch and see if it shows up also affecting spending. We'll be watching closely to see ... whether the decline in confidence is more of a psychological factor or a real factor affecting spending.
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The upturn in confidence is an encouraging sign that economic conditions are stabilizing after the hurricanes. Lower energy prices are helping, but the upturn in employment is also a plus.
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It looks like the economy is stabilizing after the hurricane-related stresses and we're heading into the holidays with an upturn in confidence that is encouraging and bodes well for the good consumer spending over the next month or so.
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Overall, confidence is still at a healthy level, up from where it was a year ago, but we did pull back a bit from the three-year high that we saw in June.
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It shows that consumers are feeling poorly about the economy, similar to what we've see in other recessions. Confidence is not as low as it was in the recessions of the early 1990s and early 1980s, but it is dropping in response to the worsening employment situation and the concern about the terrorism threat.
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It suggests the drag on the economy from the trade deficit in the third quarter will not be as great and could help revise up third-quarter GDP a bit,
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The Fed will overlook the strength in the economy before Katrina and focus more on getting the economy back on its feet and probably will hold policy steady until we see how the economy is actually dealing with the shock of lost jobs and high gasoline prices resulting from Katrina.
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The increases (in gas prices) looks like it's hitting a critical level.
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The (February) manufacturing report was a little better than expected, showing continued growth in manufacturing.
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The values of the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar and the Canadian dollar, as measured relative to the U.S. dollar, have been important signals of changing trends in global economic activity.
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The housing market is cooling off, but not too much, and inflation looks relatively benign.
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It looks like real spending was quite healthy for the start of the third quarter.
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Claims are still suggesting that the economy started the year with a strong employment situation.
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The Fed will probably hold rates steady at a low level as long as they can. And I think as long as the unemployment rate is rising, they'll maintain a policy bias toward weakness.