A late Easter this year, following an early one last year, contributed to weakness in chain store sales in March, and should ensure strength in April. |
Capacity constraints are clearly in the forefront and are what keeps the Fed going in the near term. |
Core inflation was the good news in the report. That calmed the financial markets. |
I think there is significant confusion at the Fed itself. |
I wouldn't view this as the start of a weaker trend. |
It's clear that we've seen some pass-through of raw materials costs to producer prices, but retail inflation is still restrained. |
Leading indicators have been strong the last few months, and that's telling us we're going to see very strong acceleration in first-quarter growth. |
The manufacturing surveys from September confirm that there has been no broad-based deterioration in activity due to the energy price spike in the aftermath of Katrina. This is quite promising for the growth outlook. |
We are seeing some very strong global growth trends so that should prop up exports. |
We should see continued consumer weakness in October and November, while industry overall does quite well. The soft trajectory going into the fourth quarter has adverse implications. |