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Consumer Sentiment

US Economics Week Ahead: Nothing’s Certain

Over the past two weeks new uncertainties have begun pouring into the markets, like the deluge of rain currently striking the west coast—I spent part of last week in Los Angeles.  However, unlike what’s happening over the west coast, the storms investors faced were mostly avoidable.   It all began with legitimate concerns over tightening Chinese […]

US Economics Week Ahead: Retail Sales & The Start of Earnings

With employment out of the way—for now—onto earnings; Alcoa is scheduled to kick of the 4Q09 earnings season with its report on Monday.  Earnings might be stealing most of the show this week, but don’t count out economic data with the release of a critically important retail sales release on Thursday and a torrent of […]

US Economics Week Ahead: Retailers not Dreaming of a White Christmas

Retailers are not dreaming of a white Christmas.  Whether a snowstorm impacting the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend will impact an arguably lackluster holiday shopping season is yet to be seen.  But, bad weather does have a tendency of keeping would be shoppers home, however, these shoppers will still have access to online stores, but given […]

US Economics Week Ahead: Black or Red Friday?

This week is relatively quiet on the economic front, following last week’s tsunami of data culminating in a much better than anticipated employment release.  This week’s theme is the consumers, who have the potential to stymie last week’s positive sentiment depending on sales strength during the Black Friday shopping weekend.  The week’s primary release will […]

US Economics Week Ahead: Is There Time for Turkey?

The market will be providing a cornucopia of data this week centered on Tuesday and Wednesday, which you can mull over as you begin brining your turkeys—as an aside here’s the recipe I will be following this year.  Also, I wrote an interesting column on Friday for Real Money titled ‘Talking Turkey on Agricultural Trends’ […]

Wavering Sentiment Likely to Raise Fears Among Retailers

The preliminary November University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was reported at 66.0 versus a 70.6 reading in October, and 73.5 in September–well below expectations.  As I warned in my economist first look, this index could face some downside risk as survey participants would have been exposed to a worse than anticipated employment report last […]

US Economics Week Ahead: A Quiet Week; A Busy Friday

The second full week in November brings with it not only a federal holiday on Wednesday, but a relatively quiet week on the data front. The week’s potentially most interesting piece of data—the Fed’s Senior Loan Officer Survey—has no official release date, however, looking back the report is typically published early in the week following […]

This Morning’s Macro Recap: Income & Consumption, ECI, Chicago PMI, & Consumer Sentiment

Personal Income showed no change for September after a revised increment +0.1% in August, this was inline with the consensus forecast.  Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) declined -0.5% in September, versus a revised increment of +1.4% in August.  The decline in consumption is the continued aftereffects caused by the expiration of the US government’s ‘Cash for […]

US Economics Week Ahead: The End is Near! (for the recession…)

This week’s most important economic data will likely come in the form of third quarter 2009’s advanced estimate of GDP, which should put an end to four consecutive quarters of declines.  The U.S. government’s ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program during the quarter should help to boost the personal consumption component of GDP, while inventories declining at […]

US Economics Week Ahead: A Shortened Week with a Big Punch

Despite a holiday on Monday, we have a busy week on all fronts, combing a deep economic calendar with a flurry of critical earnings releases.  On the economics front the two most important indicators are retail sales on Wednesday and CPI on Thursday.  September’s retail sales could face some negative pressure on the back of […]