Steven Wieting
Steven Wieting
data december difficult economic financial markets month raising rates winter
Year-end financial markets can be difficult, and winter economic data is difficult to read. It makes more sense that December will be month they skip. You don't want to be raising rates into what can be an illiquid market.
areas data included surprise
Today's data included well-known as well as surprise areas of weakness.
activity began bottom business catch clean confidence consumer cycle data durable economic entirely eventually expecting gains goods growth june moderate modest pointing time
We're not expecting an entirely clean read for the durable goods report. The business confidence data began to bottom at the end of June and that's encouraging. We probably will see modest gains in consumer activity and eventually the business cycle will catch up to that. But so far, everything right now is pointing to frustrating moderate economic growth for the time being,
bad carrying data days news past reaction
The reaction to this data in the past would have been much more positive. These days only bad news is carrying weight.
bad condition data february indicative jobs large losing march several underlying
There are several large drags, in a statistical sense. The underlying condition is that we're probably losing jobs. But the February and March data are not indicative of how bad it really is.
data economic guide month noted poor single time
He has time over time noted a single month of economic data is a poor guide to the future,
changes data employment expected hours providing slightly stronger thus weaker
While we don't take monthly changes in employment too seriously, today's data were slightly stronger than expected on hiring, but slightly weaker on hours and utilization, thus providing a 'growth positive' outlook.
confidence core data ease economy healthy investor markets otherwise quite recovery supporting wonder worked
While the U.S. economy is still transitioning, and will for some time, data that should be supporting confidence in the recovery have not worked to ease investor concerns. We have to wonder if markets won't derail an otherwise quite healthy recovery in much of the core of the U.S. economy.
arguing both data literally month people prices seen shown sides stop victory
It's more of a victory lap. Literally a month ago people were arguing that prices would not stop going up. Now, data we would have killed for two years ago is seen as the end of the world. But alarmists on both sides of this thing have been shown to be wrong.
data fed markets month unlikely worry
It's very unlikely for Fed to worry about month to month data changes, or even two months, as the markets do.
below data decent fell june labor
If you look at labor demand, you should be getting a decent trend. It was only June data that fell below that trend.
affects energy forecasts growth
I think energy affects us at every price. As we go marginally higher, growth forecasts get marginally weaker,
billion build companies declines demand growth inventory per quarter rate second third
We had unintentional inventory declines in the second and third quarters, which is what you would typically get in a recession. I think companies will need to build $50 billion per quarter in inventories, even if the demand growth rate is just 3.5 percent.
folks mechanics
I think it comes down to the mechanics of how folks were counted.