consumers

The unexpectedly large drop in US May retail sales has perversely boost the dollar in early North American trading as risk is taken back off. The 1.2% drop is the largest fall since late Q3 09. The slight upward revision tot he April…

This morning David Rosenberg noted: We also received the U.S. consumer credit data for April yesterday afternoon and the $1.0bln rise in total outstanding should be viewed in the context of the sharp revision in March (to now show a…

By Richard Davis of Consumer Metrics Institute, Inc. Below is an addendum to the update sent out on Tuesday, addressing new data reflecting changes in consumer behavior concerning their debt: The Consumer Metrics Institute's Personal…

By Comstock Partners In our comment of April 22nd we said that the impression that the economy was undergoing a normal economic recovery was highly misleading, and outlined a number of key economic series that supported our case that the…

I have been talking about "recovery fading" and the economy "rolling over" in the second half of this year. What I have been suggesting is that we will experience a slowing of growth to 1 or 2% in the second half of the…

Highlights The risk off trade is back on and the US dollar and yen are bid while the euro is in a no win situation at this point. There are renewed concerns over the situation in Dubai (ahead of Dubai holdings’ next repayments) and China…

The April 2010 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® showed across the board strength in US manufacturing. The index hit 60.5 percent, a 6 year high and well above the 50 percent demarcation line between recession and recovery. The…

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The BEA released US personal income and consumption figures for March today.  The data show that the growth in consumption continues to outstrip the growth in personal income. Personal income increased $36.0 billion, or 0.3…

David Rosenberg was out over the past week with some pretty large numbers supporting the thesis that strategic defaults are driving retail sales. In his daily piece last Friday, he said: To repeat, what has driven consumer spending in…