People are still spending more money

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 29, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Despite the fact that much of the month of May was filled with grim economic forebodings, personal spending still grew 0.2%.  This data from the Commerce Department was also accompanied by data showing that consumer spending grew 3% in the first quarter.  Still more data demonstrated that the personal savings rate was 4.0%.  That rate compares to a pre-recession savings rate of 1.7%....
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Finally a financial overhaul bill

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 25, 2010 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 1 comment The big news this morning, and perhaps the biggest news since I started publishing the blog, is that a financial industry overhaul bill has finally been readied for Congress to vote on.  I began the blog sending out a mini-manifesto to the e-ethers calling for reform of the financial industry.  A bill has finally been negotiated between the Senate and the House; passage is expected some time...
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Yuan:dollar peg allowed to "move"

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 22, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments For years governments around the world, especially Europe and the United States, have been trying to convince China to relax its pegging of its yuan currency to the U.S. dollar.  Normally currencies are allowed to fluctuate in value relative to one another.  In theory changes in the exchange rate between two currencies should reflect changes in the economies of the two countries in question. ...
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Existing home sales decline slightly

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 22, 2010 in Blog | 2 comments May’s existing home sales declined by 2.2% vs. April’s number. Analysis: The primary reason for the decline is that a Federal Government tax credit for first time home buyers expired on April 30th.  While some pundits may be worried about the health of the housing market, a 2.2% decline is really not much of a decline given that the first time home buyer credit was so large and...
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Fears of European crisis way overblown

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 17, 2010 in Blog, Predictions | 0 comments Good morning everyone! For today’s post I wanted to highlight for you why I feel that current investor fears about a collapse of the European economy are way overblown. As far as I can tell most of the fears are sourced in a fear that Spain will be the next Greece.  The market rumor mill which is so powerful and so silly is full of news that a Spanish official has suggested that Spain is...
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Land vs. machine

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 16, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Conflicting economic data have been released today. On one hand, we have U.S. Commerce Department data showing that housing starts in May fell 10% to a 593,000 annual rate.  This figure compares to an expected rate of 648,000.  Clearly this is a big miss relative to expectations. On the other hand, we have Federal Reserve industrial production data showing an expansion of 1.2% in May.  This...
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Data supports blog prediction

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 15, 2010 in Blog, Predictions | 0 comments Bloomberg is reporting this morning that demand for long-term U.S. financial assets surged in March and April.  Recall that I predicted this would happen because of the turmoil in Europe, as well as the fact that the U.S. economy is strengthening.  In March the net buying of U.S. financial assets was a staggering $140.5 billion, and in April it was a more modest, but still impressive, $83...
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