Lara Rhame
Lara Rhame
across auto based flat gone growth headline mainly november number positive sales seeing spending true
We had a positive headline number with November's upward revision, but we're still seeing a discouraging trend. Excluding auto sales, sales have gone from 0.8 to 0.3 to flat over October, November and December. So we're seeing growth mainly based on auto purchases. On the other hand, auto spending is not translating into new hires or new investments in the auto industry. And that's true across industries.
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I think a lot of gloom still exists about the size of the deficit and the market is punishing the dollar for that.
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I think it's too soon to call for a bottom simply because history has shown us that with this currency, it's a tough bet.
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It is a modest dollar negative; the trade data combined with the claims data, but the focus this morning is very much on digesting the BOJ and on payrolls tomorrow.
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We had a massive jump in the Conference Board measure of consumer sentiment last month, and everybody will be looking for confirmation of that improvement in the Michigan survey.
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Look at the subcomponents -- what are inventories and new orders in this case? ... If I were the purchasing manager at a hospital and somebody asked me about 'new orders,' what would I count? Syringes? Patients? At a bank, what's 'inventory?' Palm Pilots? Mortgages?
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Markets initially seem to be focusing more on the downward revision in growth than the upward revision to the deflator.
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Market expectations have priced a rate cut in. When markets are pricing it in like that, the Fed can't afford to give a downside surprise in this environment.
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It erodes the relative interest-rate support for the dollar.
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We're not pricing in rate hikes any time soon, and today's data won't change that. Inflation is off the radar screen for policy makers.
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Without the U.S., there's not much forward momentum in the global economy.
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Yet again, the U.S. consumer has phenomenal resilience and is not being swayed by the employment numbers coming out.
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This was an honest-to-goodness better-than-expected report. There were no special factors in it that made it look artificially strong. The report also indicates that consumer fatigue may not be as severe as we had previously thought.
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This really reduces the chance of a cyclical bounce in spending, which is what we typically expect to see in a recovery.