It's not really troubling. It's the first decline since September. Probably more important is the trend that's in place, which is upward. You would probably need to see three or more declines in the leading index to signal a problem. |
It's sort of a good news-bad news situation though, because if it gets out of hand, it can create other problems for the economy. |
It's still a good reading overall, but not quite as robust as we've seen in the last several months. The encouraging thing is that the employment component increased again. We are beginning to see businesses becoming a little more willing to hire. |
Looking back, it is understandable why the Australian and New Zealand currencies peaked in early 2005. That was about the same time that the demand for crude oil also started to moderate. |
Manufacturing is expanding, but not as broadly as in November. There was weakness in new orders and employment. |
Now that we're in a more open economy, and there's a lot more opportunity to get goods from overseas, if manufacturers are operating at full capacity, there's less likelihood that somebody will bid up prices at a domestic producer if they can get it somewhere else. |
Overall, confidence is still at a healthy level, up from where it was a year ago, but we did pull back a bit from the three-year high that we saw in June. |
Policy-makers have been worried that rising energy costs could lead to higher prices for other things including higher wages and compensation, but it looks like companies are keeping their employment costs in check. |
Productivity numbers on a quarter-to-quarter basis are very volatile. The downwardly revised second-quarter numbers could easily be revised upward in the third quarter. |
So core inflation is still rising slightly but doesn't appear to be a problem, and I think this is good news for the Federal Reserve . With energy prices declining it reduces the risk that fuel costs will be passed on to consumers. |
The (February) manufacturing report was a little better than expected, showing continued growth in manufacturing. |
The big number is the employment number on Friday. If that number comes in weak for the third consecutive month, views on the Fed are likely to change significantly. |
The bond market had been thinking that the weak economic numbers that we've seen would cause the Fed to think twice about raising rates, |
The bond market liked the inflation data. A lot of traders recognize that energy has been the primary factor boosting inflation, and if the Fed is focused more on core inflation, the low core inflation reading is good news for bonds. |
The bond market took the GDP number positively, ... It had expected stronger growth and some people may now be reminded that the Fed will not be quick to raise rates. |