The Fed keeps trying to walk the middle course, and unfortunately that gives ammunition to people who think the Fed should be raising rates more and ammunition to people who think the Fed should be done. |
The important thing, though, (it that) it's a January number. So we ended the fourth quarter on 1.1% GDP growth, but now, starting the next new quarter, we're going to have this surge in housing activity. And it's going to add to GDP estimates for the first quarter. |
The ISM reports are honestly not the best way to go about forecasting the payroll report. |
The labor market is hot and getting hotter, and that is one of the reasons the Fed continues to raise rates. |
The long awaited drop-off in housing activity may have started. |
The market liked what it didn't see. The market got itself worked up about the Fed possibly being more aggressive about inflation and when that didn't appear in the minutes, investors then focused on a relatively benign view of inflation. |
The overall number does suggest modest amounts of strength, but nothing necessarily that gets me too excited. |
The prices received number tells us that basically some firms are gaining pricing power. What that really means is there could be inflation in the outlook. |
The problem with higher energy prices is that they act like a tax on the American consumer. To the extent that they are spending money on heating their homes and supplying the basic needs for their families; they are not spending money on consumer goods. |
The risk is that there's something that economists aren't picking up. As oil prices go higher, firms see margins compress and that could put a squeeze on hiring. |
The trend in this data suggests a stronger payroll report than we had been anticipating. |
There are figures that show roughly 50 percent of households have exposure to equities in some form, and clearly we would start to see a dip in consumer confidence and some retrenchment in spending from the recent sell-off, I don't think this is necessarily the beginning of a bear market. |
There have been historical precedents where people have spent well in excess of what they've earned from foreign trading partners for extended periods of time and nothing has happened. The big wild card is you have a reserve currency (such as the dollar), how much extra room does that give you. That's the $100,000 question, or the $100 million question, or the $1 trillion question. |
There seems to be a fight about every nomination that Bush puts up. But even if it was a 51-49 vote, it's not like they can recall him. |
There's a lot of data that will show him (Greenspan) whether or not consumers are feeling safe. |