Anecdotes Help You To Understand the Economy

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 23, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments I was spending time with a loyal blog reader yesterday and he brought up what he felt was an economic anecdote conundrum.  On one hand he was listening to a program that said that the Pittsburgh Pirates were struggling to fill their ballpark right now and that average attendance was around 10,000 people.  The reason for the fanbase decline is that the economy is tough.  Yet he had just returned...
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Rationalization as an economic indicator

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 23, 2010 in Blog | 2 comments When economic data are reported in the press there are always experts who provide commentary on the data.  One of my favorite ways of evaluating the state of things is to see if the pundits let economic data speak for itself or do they instead rationalize the information to conform to a particular type of expected picture.  Here is an example from today’s Wall Street Journal regarding a...
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Producer price index up moderately

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 23, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday saw the release of the data about the producer price index (PPI), a major gauge of inflation.  In March the PPI was up 0.7% once adjusted for seasonality relative to the February figure.  It is typical of inflation data to back out the effects of both food and energy prices because of their volatility.  The adjusted figure is known as the “core” inflation number.  In March...
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That old blog standard: initial jobless claims

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 23, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Yesterday saw the initial jobless claims report from the Department of Labor.  Claims fell by 24,000 to 456,000.  More importantly, the four-week moving average of claims rose by 2,750 to 460,250. Analysis: While the corporate profit data and the official gross domestic product data may indicate that the recession is over, the hangover continues as evidenced by the “treading water”...
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Substance vs. form

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 22, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Since the Obama administration has finally turned its attention away from healthcare reform and to financial industry overhaul legislation expect me to comment quite a bit about it. First, as I have said since my very first blog posting back in October 2008, the financial industry needs reform.  Old laws that were systematically rolled back need to be shoved forward.  Additionally, regulators...
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Earnings season tepid so far

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 19, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments A quick missive: I have neither seen nor heard any amazing news this earnings season.  That is, nothing that would cause me to change my view that the economy is only escaping from the recession gradually.  Nothing that would cause me to be a stock market bull the way I was a year ago in March. What I have seen is corporations doing an excellent job of expense management.  An okay job of...
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Now revenues need to grow

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Apr 19, 2010 in Blog | 0 comments Good morning everyone!  I hope that this posting finds all of you in good spirits. The Wall Street Journal this morning has an article talking about something I have been talking about for almost 9 months on the blog.  Namely, that corporate revenues need to start growing and not just profits.  It’s like this… During the recession many businesses saw the bottom fall out of their...
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