Economic Data

Point for point, I agree with the commentary from Felix Zulauf in this week’s Barron’s mid-year roundtable discussion. For long-time Credit Writedowns readers, you will recognize almost every one of these points from previous posts. It is…

Tepper says if the market falls a couple hundred points maybe they would reconsider. But the only result now might be more food and energy inflation.

On balance it would then seem that the consensus remains weighed towards no QE3 either because it is not needed or because it does not work in the first place. I think it is very simple in the end though. If sideways movement gives way to a…

Jeffrey Gundlach spoke with Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider in an exclusive interview which they recently carried on their site. Gundlach believes that the economy is “a low-performance mode” that makes the unemployment overhang…

In the US, you have a weakening recovery, uneven job growth, less accommodative monetary policy, tightening fiscal policy at the federal and local levels, austerity in Europe and tightening in emerging markets coupled with secularly high…

I am concerned that the emerging markets have overheated and are now reversing direction quickly. Policy rates are still low when adjusted for inflation. But, given the economic weakness now manifest across North America and Europe, the…

I mean to ask how deep the downturn in your country was. On Tuesday, Martin Wolf had a good graphic on this. The upshot of his analysis is that while US GDP growth compares favourably to Japan and Western Europe, its unemployment compares…

Inflation is sapping spending power. Legitimately, one cannot expect pay to rise by 4 and 5% per annum in a still weak economic environment. Therefore, the only way to see more purchasing power for consumers over the medium-term is via…

This chart is for year over year ‘real’ GDP growth. Note the recurring first quarter spikes followed by dips, presumably due to front loading annual state spending and lending.

We are in a mid-cycle slowdown not dissimilar to the ones we experienced in 1995 or 2005. I am remarkably sanguine about the ability of policy makers to induce a cyclical recovery via fiscal and monetary stimulus. And, of course things…