inventories

The August 2009 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business was released and the widely followed PMI Index came in ahead of expectations at 52.9. Expectations were for 50.5. As 50 marks the divide between contraction and expansion, this survey…

Down 1.5% was the consensus expectation. But Q1 was revised down to minus 6.4% from 5.5%. The GDP Deflator for Q2 came in at 0.2%, which shows that disinflation risks tipping into deflation still.  The dollar is weaker and the short…

Not necessarily. There’s a lot more to it than just GDP.  Last year at almost exactly this time, I mentioned this in my post Recession while GDP is growing? because a lot of people were getting excited about the fact that Q2 GDP was…

The June 2009 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® came out today and we saw yet another rise in the PMI to 44.8.  While equity markets in the U.S. seemed pretty pleased that the numbers continue to go up, I found this report a bit…

The Institute for Supply Management released its monthly manufacturing index.  The data shows that the manufacturing sector is still contracting with the headline number rising to 42.8 in May, up from 40.1 in April. This number was ahead of…

Below is the opening text to the U.S. government’s press release on the revised GDP numbers from the last quarter.  I have highlighted the most relevant parts in bold.  Overall, these revisions are not significant.  The main…

A recent post I published on both Credit Writedowns and Naked Capitalism, “Both initial claims and continuing claims now pointing to recovery,” has left the impression that I am a wild-eyed bull – for which I have been duly smacked about…

Now that everyone is talking about green shoots and the potential for economic recovery, I thought I would run through the statistics of U.S. GDP with you.  The reason I am bringing this up is that there is a lot of confusion about what…

Last month I noted that the ISM Manufacturing index indicated that the manufacturing sector was still contracting, albeit at a slower pace.  The latest data from the month of April show the same phenomenon.  likely, the index has already…

The U.S. GDP report for the first quarter of 2009 was pretty awful.  GDP came in much worse than expected at an annualized  -6.1% below Q4.  Here are a few data points (all referencing real GDP data): The numbers were much worse than…