{"id":461,"date":"2010-07-27T12:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T16:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intuitiveinvestor.com\/web\/?p=461"},"modified":"2018-08-17T15:51:56","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T19:51:56","slug":"latest-economic-data-tells-us-not-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2010\/07\/27\/latest-economic-data-tells-us-not-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest economic data tells us not much"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed that I have not been posting as frequently to the blog of late.\u00a0 The reason is that the economy has remained in a consistent pattern of slow revenue growth, slightly faster profit growth, and hovering unemployment data.\u00a0 There was a moment heading into last spring in which I would give weekly updates on economic data, but frankly very little of it has swayed from the above characterization.\u00a0 So you know, I am still tracking numbers from the economy.\u00a0 The latest…<\/span><\/p>\n

Home prices in May rose both on a month over month basis, and on a year over year basis.\u00a0 That is, May’s sales were higher than April’s by 1.3% and they were higher than those of the year prior’s month off May by 4.6%.<\/span><\/p>\n

Separately, that grand daddy of all economic statistics, consumer confidence, fell in July to a level of 50.4.\u00a0 This number was only slightly less than the consensus forecast of 50.8.\u00a0 The July level is the lowest since February’s 46.4.<\/span><\/p>\n

Analysis:<\/strong> As you can see we have one sign of economic health – the rise of home prices, and one statistic indicating economic stagnation – consumer confidence.\u00a0 What’s interesting to me is that for home prices to rise consumers have to be buying those houses and a home is the largest purchase that most people ever make.\u00a0 So consumers are<\/span> buying, but they don’t feel very good about it.\u00a0 To me this is very telling and potentially hopeful.\u00a0 Why?<\/span><\/p>\n

As you can see from the data, the consumer confidence number is very volatile.\u00a0 In February it was at 46, then it was up to post-recession highs and now it is back down again.\u00a0 All of this volatility has happened in an economic climate that has actually been stable.\u00a0 So why the volatility?\u00a0 What has been volatile is the news around the economy and its prospects.\u00a0 Especially those wily Europeans and their banking and debt woes.\u00a0 But that news is largely behind us.\u00a0 So will the consumer confidence volatility work to our favor?\u00a0 I think so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because it is an election year count on the Obama Administration and Democrats and Republicans to start listening to and paying attention to the consumer.\u00a0 There will be all sorts of proposals that will sound good to consumer ears.\u00a0 Corporate profitability is slowly getting stronger.\u00a0 Hiring is likely to follow.\u00a0 The stock markets will likely rise.\u00a0 And the consumer’s frown will turn to a taciturn grimace.\u00a0 Believe it or not, that is\u00a0a good thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Importance grade:<\/strong> 4; 10; the 4 is for the home price data.\u00a0 At the end of the day, the economy is much more than just home price data.\u00a0 However, folks are buying houses and they are bidding up home prices above what they were even just several months before.\u00a0 The 10 is for the consumer confidence data.\u00a0 Like it or not, our economy is still dependent on John and Jane Doe opening up their wallets for stuff.\u00a0 Depressed consumers do this less often.\u00a0 My feeling though, is that the consumer confidence data for August will stabilize.\u00a0 From there I am guessing that there will be a marginal increase, followed by steady gains.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed that I have not been posting as frequently to the blog of late.\u00a0 The reason is that the economy has remained in a consistent pattern of slow revenue growth, slightly faster profit growth, and hovering unemployment data.\u00a0 There was a moment heading into last spring in which I would give weekly […]<\/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-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","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=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}