by Jason Apollo Voss | 15 09 2009 | Blog
Just as there is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to measure consumer-level inflation, there is a Producer Price Index (PPI) to measure manufacturer-level inflation. In August the Labor Department reported the PPI was up 1.7%. This is practically the perfect number....
by Jason Apollo Voss | 15 09 2009 | Blog
For the month of August retail sales were up 2.7%. This compared to a consensus expectation of up 2.0%. This kind of big outperformance, 35% to be exact, is encouraging and suggests that the virtuous circle of “good stock market performance leading to increased...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 13 09 2009 | Best of the Blog, Blog
Let’s step slightly outside the bounds of finance and talk about something that distresses me; something not often discussed in our culture. Namely, our culture of lying. I bring this up, not to moralize (because that’s not me), but to send up a corrupting...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 11 09 2009 | Blog
One of the more interesting, yet subtle, indicators that I use to gauge the mood of the consumer is to check out the thickness of big advertiser heavy magazines. You know, mags like Vogue, Cosmopolitan, GQ, or Details. There are plenty of others, but these magazines...
by Jason Apollo Voss | 11 09 2009 | Blog
Happy Friday folks! The WSJ is reporting this morning that Chrysler is resuming the leasing of its cars. Recall that a year ago they stopped leasing vehicles amidst the mounting doom of the financial system meltdown and recession. The automaker just emerged from...
