Written on July 10, 2011 by Wiley Hayden
New home sales plummeted by 17% mom to a new low of 250k in February while median home prices declined by 8.9% yoy. The weakness in new home sales is related to the excess supply of existing homes, mainly resulting from massive foreclosure activities. However, given the drop in prices and the improvement in the employment outlook, new home sales could have risen to 285k in March.
The Conference Board’s consumer confidence dived from 72.0 to 63.4 in March as inflation expectations surged. The catastrophe in Japan and the turmoil in Libya also took their toll. We already know that the University of Michigan’s (UMI) preliminary April consumer sentiment recovered slightly from 67.5 to 69.6 on improved expectations, given stable stock prices and relatively favourable labour market news. However, gasoline prices have continued to rise sharply, and we thus expect consumer confidence to have remained merely stable in April. UMI
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Posted in Financial Consultant | Comment Now!
Written on July 7, 2011 by Cheryl Rankins
For the past two years, I’ve been riding a bicycle to work. Mostly because I’m cheap. My commute is a 12-mile round trip along residential streets with a nice downhill stretch that leads me into the parking lot of the school where I work. I’ve made this trip in 100-degree weather, in fog, and in rain. I’ve managed to survive pot holes, stray dogs, and the social stigma attached to wearing clothing that looks like it came straight out of an X-Men comic book.
I recently tried to break down the costs and spending of riding for the past year. How much would I have spent on my car if I’d driven instead? How much did the bike cost? What about the commuting equipment? Unfortunately, some of the benefits you can’t quantify (you know: health, enjoyment), but I did what I could.
First, during the last year, I’ve ridden roughly 300 miles a month for strictly utilitarian purposes (I’m not counting my fun rides), which puts me at about 3600 miles for the year. I didn’t actual
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Posted in Financial Glossary | Comment Now!
Written on July 7, 2011 by Julia Woodard
1. The American Staffing Association Staffing Index, a weekly barometer of temporary and contract employment that is also a key coincident economic indicator and a leading indicator of total U.S. nonfarm employment reached a year-to-date high of 88 for the week ending June 26. It was also the highest weekly reading during the month of June since 2008 three years ago.
2. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is reporting a 6.8% increase in global passenger traffic for May compared to the same month last year.
3. Passenger traffic at Washington Regan Airport increased 8.1% in May compared to a year ago.
4. The American Association of Railroads is reporting another weekly gain in rail traffic for the week ending July 2, with both carloads and intermodal volume increasing compared to the same week last year.
5. The Cass Freight Index, a monthly, broad-based measure of shipping activity across a wide range of industries reached a three-year high in June of this year, with more shipments in any single month since June 2008.
6. Ship
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Posted in Financial Planning | Comment Now!
Written on July 6, 2011 by Wiley Hayden
- Labour market report (Jun): payroll growth likely to have recovered only moderately
Factory orders, which went down by 1.2% mom in April due to a sharp decline in durable goods orders, are likely to have rebounded in May. We already know that durable goods orders rose by 1.9% mom, particularly due to a recovery in nondefense aircraft orders. But nondurable goods orders might have gone up only modestly, as energy prices moderated in the course of the month and the ISM new orders component declined to a slow expansion level of 51.0. We expect total factory orders to have increased by about 1.0% mom in May.
Whereas the ISM manufacturing index fell significantly in May, the ISM non-manufacturing index recovered by 1.8 points to 54.6 and was thus higher than its manufacturing counterpart for the first time since June 2009. Manufacturing was hit particularly by supply chain disruptions resulting from the Japanese disaster.
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Posted in Financial Consultant | Comment Now!
Written on July 6, 2011 by Julia Woodard
According to the folks at Fidelity Investments, the average frequency of a 10% market correction is once per year. However, we have not seen a pullback of this magnitude over the last 12 months (7/6/10-7/5/11), and we have yet to see it occur in 2011.
In March, the Middle East uprisings coupled with Japan’s devastating earthquake certainly had the potential to trigger a traditional stock market correction. Still, it didn’t happen. In fact, U.S. equities hit multi-year highs by the last day of April.
Sovereign debt risks combined with hideous “soft patch” numbers on the U.S. economy ushered in a May-June swoon. However, the last trading week of June recovered most of the 7% losses with the strongest price rally for U.S. stocks in 2 years.
Clearly, risk may be back in vogue for the moment. On the
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Posted in Financial Planning | Comment Now!