{"id":382,"date":"2010-03-23T11:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T15:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=382"},"modified":"2018-08-20T15:48:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T19:48:10","slug":"more-economic-data-more-reasons-to-be-cautious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2010\/03\/23\/more-economic-data-more-reasons-to-be-cautious\/","title":{"rendered":"More economic data &#8211; more reasons to be cautious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">In February, existing home sales fell 0.6% according to the National Association of Realtors.\u00a0 This was better than the expected decline of 2.0%.\u00a0 Additionally, the median price of a home fell 1.8%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Analysis:<\/strong> Home sales are important data to track right now because homes are the biggest purchases that most consumers make.\u00a0 Those purchases require taking on huge amounts of debt in order to purchase.\u00a0 So home sales are indirect evidence of consumer confidence, consumer spending, consumer spending, and the willingness of banks to lend money.\u00a0 That existing home sales fell 0.6% (basically a statistical error) is less important than that they have fallen for a third straight month.\u00a0 This\u00a0is not a good sign of a robust economic recovery but is indicative of an economy still treading water.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Frankly, all of the economic data continues to suggest an economy moving sideways.\u00a0 In contrast, the financial markets continue to climb.\u00a0 This is a puzzling and troubling disconnect.\u00a0 I am spending my time in cash right now, but investigating possibilities for my investment dollars.\u00a0 If the economy continues to struggle and the financial markets collapse then it will be a great buying opportunity for strong businesses.\u00a0 If, on the other hand, the financial markets rise, I am happy to give up some upside return in exchange for greater certainty that the economy is stronger.\u00a0 Mitigating against these bearish things\u00a0is my intuitive sense that the U.S. consumer is feeling ok about herself\/himself for the first time in a couple of years.\u00a0 Additionally, it is unlikely that we will see additional layoffs at U.S. companies.\u00a0 These are bullish things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Importance grade:<\/strong> 4; because homes are so expensive they are not a great indicator in a sideways economy of consumer confidence.\u00a0 If, however, the data showed an increase of existing home sales of 5% then the importance grade would be 10 as it would be an unambiguous indicator of consumer confidence.\u00a0 So the low score of 4 is awarded because the data only confirm that the economy is going sideways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In February, existing home sales fell 0.6% according to the National Association of Realtors.\u00a0 This was better than the expected decline of 2.0%.\u00a0 Additionally, the median price of a home fell 1.8%. Analysis: Home sales are important data to track right now because homes are the biggest purchases that most consumers make.\u00a0 Those purchases require [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}