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Original post By Stuart Burns Purchasing Managers Index, or PMI, numbers are at best an estimate of sentiment and an indication of business confidence about the coming months. But confidence can evaporate like dew in the sunshine. In today's uncertain world, however, we tend to c...
By Robert Hughes Weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance jumped sharply for the week ending March 14, rising 70,000 to 281,000, the highest level since September 2017. The four-week average came in at 232,250 versus 215,750 in the prior week (see top chart). According to the Emp...
Just one month ago, manufacturing businesses surveyed by the Philadelphia Fed indicated the most optimistic outlook since early 2017. Throw in the massive impact of the coronavirus and in one month, that picture has been completely turned on its head. Falling from 36.7 last month to -12.7 this...
Doctor Copper is the red metal that is a building block for infrastructure around the globe. Copper has a long history as a barometer for the overall health and wellbeing of the worldwide economy. Since China is the leading consumer of the nonferrous metal, copper is often a proxy for economic...
Manufacturing in the U.S. was contracting for the latter half of 2019 and bounced back last month. February is the second month in a row that U.S. manufacturing expanded based on the ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). The current PMI is over 50 at a value of 50.1 in February 20...
All eyes remain on China these days. The economy of the world's most populous nation with the second-leading GDP began to run into problems five years ago. In late 2015 and early 2016, the slowdown in Chinese economic growth weighed in markets across all asset classes. Since China is the top c...
By Jill Mislinski The Philly Fed's Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey is a monthly report for the Third Federal Reserve District, which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. While it focuses exclusively on business in this district, this regional survey gives...
Real retail sales continue flat in January; production sector still in recession Retail sales increased nominally by +0.3% in January, while December was revised downward by -0.1%, for a net gain of +0.2%. Since consumer inflation increased by +0.4% during those two months, real retail sal...
Over the past four decades, I have traded at least one contract of almost every commodity on the futures market. However, I have never set foot near the lumber market. The volume and open interest, the total number of open long and short positions, in the lumber market have always been at leve...
This is the week I highlight further information from last Friday's jobs report. One thing that struck me is that we've now had two months of declines in manufacturing jobs. This is something I have been anticipating since about the middle of last year, because the manufacturing workweek had...