Friday, May 11, 2007

Producer Prices Increase .7%

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From the BLS: The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods increased 0.7 percent in April, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statisti...

Retail Sales Drop .2%

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From the Census Bureau: The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adju...

Consumer Confidence is Iffy

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From the AP "Consumer confidence appears to be spinning its wheels," observed Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. ...
Thursday, May 10, 2007

Wal-Marts Sales Drop Most in 28 Years

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From the WSJ: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. posted its worst monthly same-store sales results in at least 28 years, tallying a 3.5% decline in April...

Foot Locker Radically Lowers Sales

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Foot Locker Inc: late Thursday cut it first-quarter earnings forecast to a range of 10 cents to 11 cents a share, down from its earlier fore...

The Markets Today

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Considering today's sell-off, let's take a look to see what happened from the bigger picture -- the daily charts. Here's a chart...

Trade Deficit Expands; May Drag 1Q Growth Down

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From CBS MarketWatch: The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in March after having improved somewhat over the past six months, a government ...

April Retail Sales Slide

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From CBS Marketwatch: April was largely a sales disaster for most of the nation's largest retail chain stores. But it wasn't unexpec...

Gas Prices Are Still Rising

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From This Week in Petroleum: Gasoline prices rose sharply for the second consecutive week, increasing 8.3 cents to 305.4 cents per gallon fo...

There May Be Room For Continued US Consumption Increases

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From the WSJ: Personal debt has reached a record $2.6 trillion. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, U.K....
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Headlines Tell The Tale of the Tape

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All three of the following headlines are from Bloomberg. 1.) U.S. Stocks Rise on Profits, Takeover Speculation; Alltel Jumps 2.) European S...

FOMC Statement: RATES AREN'T COMING DOWN

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Here's a link to the statement: Economic growth slowed in the first part of this year and the adjustment in the housing sector is ongoi...

Great Discussion of Employment Numbers

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Over at the Big Picture.

Housing News Continues To Be Weak

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From the WSJ: The number of homes listed for sale in 18 major metropolitan areas at the end of April was up 7% from March, according to dat...

Consumers Are Getting Squeezed From Several Directions

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From Bloomberg: A pickup in U.S. economic growth is becoming more elusive as climbing gasoline prices, falling home values and fewer jobs re...

The Proper Way to Look at Business

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From Bloomberg: The slowdown in profit growth ``is temporary as we are planting seeds,'' said President Katsuaki Watanabe, speaking...
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Which Market Is It?

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There are several columns out right now comparing the current market to various other historical periods. Dow Parallels 1927: The surging Do...

Inventories and Inventory Sales Increase

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From CNBC: Inventories at US wholesalers rose modestly for the third straight month in March, while sales rose at their fastest pace in a ye...

Consumer Credit Expands

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From IBD: March's rise was much better than expected and the best since Nov. Credit-card borrowing and auto loans both showed notable ga...

Food Prices Increasing Due to Ethanol

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From IBD: Food prices rose at a 5.2% annual rate in the three months to March, the biggest gain in years. That's a big reason, along wit...