Economic Data

The big news when the advanced estimate of the 4Q/2010 GDP was announced last week was the recovery of the pre-recession level of GDP.  This was presented by some as good news, but was suitably qualified by others.

By Michael Pettis Most of this week’s newsletter was about the release last week of China’s fourth quarter GDP growth numbers by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). You can find the full NBS report on their website, but here is the…

by Annaly Capital Management Released by the BEA this morning: the advance reading of real GDP came in at 3.2% for the 4Q of 2010 (actually, it was 3.17%, but who’s counting?) versus expectations of 3.5%. There was a lot of internal noise,…

by Marc Chandler At 3.2% the Q4 US GDP came in a bit lower than expected. Inventories were the main reason for the miss. In terms of inventory, the key is the change in the change. Inventories rose a little more than $7 bln in Q4 after a…

by Comstock Partners The majority of economists and strategists are now telling anyone who will listen that  the economic recovery is now normal and are trumpeting this view to jump-start the stock market. They are confidently…

The gist of the conversation we had on Business News Network on Tuesday was that the data coming out of the U.S. ahead of the President's State of the Union address was conflicting. Housing was dreadful, but consumer confidence was up;…

By Claus Vistesen Despite the efforts of yours truly to create as strong a profile as possible in the world of econ-blogging, I regret to inform my readers that the organizers of the World Economic Forum in Davos have not found it within…

The Case-Shiller numbers this morning were lower than expected and confirm a housing double dip which began in July when both the Composite-10 and Composite-20 numbers peaked.  The Composite-10 is down 0.5% y-o-y and the Composite-20…

Here are a bunch of the participants from this year's Barron's Investor Roundtable discussion talking to Michael Santoli about the ideas they expressed.

Nomura's Bob Janjuah was on Bloomberg Television's "Inside Track" with Erik Schatzker this morning, discussing his outlook as well as the crises in the U.S. and Europe. He opened the session by saying he is tactically bearish over…