The trend is not going to be that great if imports are picking up in momentum. |
There are reasonably deep-seated reasons for pessimism on the part of home builders. |
There's not much to worry about as far as imported inflation is concerned. For as long as the dollar hangs in there, we should see a benign reading for import prices excluding fuels. |
They are basically saying what every Fed official who has opened his mouth in the last month has said, ... The Fed is going to continue to nudge short-term interest rates, unless something disastrous happens. |
They are being as clear as they possibly can be about raising rates in December without knowing what the data will be in the next month, |
Things are pretty healthy. The economy is growing at a nice clip, exports are rising and inventories are being accumulated. |
This is actually fairly amazing given all the uncertainty engendered by the effect of the hurricanes on September data that has yet to be reported. |
We believe that consumer spending is going to bear the brunt of higher energy prices that we have seen leading up to and immediately following Hurricane Katrina as discretionary spending is curtailed. |
We continue to expect the Fed funds target to reach 5 percent in the second quarter of next year, which is where we see the tightening process ending. Comments from Fed officials suggest that they expect only a temporary hit to growth from higher energy prices, while concern about a drift up in core inflation is increasing. |
We would not jump to any conclusions based on these numbers, particularly as the weekly jobless claims figures, adjusted for hurricane effects, point to considerably stronger job growth than reported. |
We're in the early stages of a slowdown in the housing market. |
Well, with gasoline well over $3.00 a gallon in most places when this survey was conducted, it is little wonder that consumers were cranky, |
While these orders have been volatile of late, the trend remains a solid one. Whether we will see a disruption in this trend due to the surge in energy prices remains to be seen and will ultimately be more important to markets than today's pre-Katrina outcome. |
While this was obviously a good month, we don't expect this to continue. We think it's going to be a slow drift up in core inflation going forward. |
While we have seen an increase today versus a forecasted decline, housing starts are currently doing on a trend basis what many have forecasted: remaining on a high plateau, unable to move higher but not seeing demand fall off enough to take starts lower. |