- by New Deal democrat
My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.
After the article was published, I noticed a couple of errors. Since, unlike with XE.com, at Seeking Alpha I can't go back and revise the article itself, I corrected in a comment, which I'm repeating below. I expect the kinks required by my tight publication schedule there to get worked out in short order. In the meantime, sorry for the errors.
First, the brief monthly/quarterly data recap should be updated as follows:
Data for June included new and existing home sales, which both declined. Durable goods orders rose. Consumer confidence as measured by the University of Michigan rose slightly, although the longer term trend in the leading "expectations" component has been generally flat for 18 months.
In the rear view mirror, Q2 GDP as expected came in quite strong, at +4.1%, although exports contributed roughly +0.5% more than usual to that number. The long leading indicator of proprietors income increased, but that of private fixed residential investment as a share of GDP declined.
Second, in the conclusion I accidentally wrote that mortgage rates were a positive. As I note in the body of the article, having risen back above 4.65%, they are a negative, which is what I factored into my long term forecast of neutral. It's worth noting, though, that had the yield curve been only 0.5% tighter, the only remaining positive would be the credit indexes, and that would be enough to have tipped the long term forecast to negative.
