Business Cycle & Economics Blog of Caleb Lawrence
Stocks fell hard to close the week leaving the DOW off some 200 points or 2% since Monday, while the NASDAQ shed 100 points or nearly 5% since the beginning of the week. I guess the GDP party is over all ready. Probably because the more one looked at the official figure of +3.5% the [...]
Stocks rose strongly in early trade following a better than expected 3rd quarter GDP report that came in at +3.5%. This produced a stream of headlines heralding the official end to the recession, so party like its 1999. A close look at the numbers shows that much of the increase in GDP last quarter is [...]
Volatile early trade saw stocks sink steadily lower on disappointing news. Mortgage applications fell for a 3rd consecutive week as per the MBA, refi’s slipped 16.2 points while purchase apps declined 5.2 points. This despite a fractional drop in the average 30-year contract rate to 5.04%. This brings the index to a 6-month low and [...]
Stocks struggled in late morning trade on mixed data. The Case/Schiller Index 10-City Index gained 1% last month continuing a sting of recent advances. From a year ago prices remain 10.6% lower. Of the 10 cities that make up the index all but Vegas, -.3%, posted a gain last month. San Francisco was numero uno [...]
After opening higher stocks fell late on little real news. Another 7 banks went to the receivers Friday bringing the 2009 total to 106, the highest annual figure since 181 failures in 1992. Cumulative losses for the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund now stand at some 45 billion since 2007. The Chicago Fed National Activity Index [...]
Stocks struggled to close the week despite decent earnings news. Since Monday the DOW and NASDAQ have each given up about 1/3%. The ECRI Weekly Leading Index fell for a second week to 127.9, the soothed annualized growth rate fell to 27.2. Existing home sales increased a larger than expected 9.4% in September as buyers [...]
Stocks struggled in morning trade on mixed news. Unemployment claims registered a small increase during the latest week to 531,000 initial claims. The real news was the all-time record high over 26-weeks that the average duration of benefits has lasted. The number of mass layoffs in September declined slightly to 2,561 events involving 248,006 workers [...]
Stocks hold modest gains into the final hour on decent earnings news. So far about 160 companies have reported earnings and the “beat” rate is running 77%, very strong by historical standards, given market valuations earnings need to be stellar. Mortgage applications fell last week as the latest MBA survey dropped 13.7 points on declines [...]
Stocks fell in early trade spooked by disappointing economic data. Residential construction increased fractionally to 610,000 units annualized in September. Permits slipped to 573,000 units annualized during the same period. The PPI fell .6% in September this pushed the annualized rate of price change at the wholesale level to –4.7%, continuing the declining price credit [...]
Stocks moved higher to begin the week on little news. The NAHB Index slipped 1 point in October to 18, declines were also seen in traffic and potential buyers, likely this is due to the expiration of the homebuyer tax-credit. The arrest Friday of billionaire hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group [...]
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. Much like my daily radio show on KPIG 107.5 FM in Santa Cruz California and KPYG FM 94.9 Cayucos/San Luis Obispo California. A thousand Blogs were able to spot the current problems and many began discussing it years before it reached crises proportions. While there were exceptions, and these exceptions are becoming more common, the mainstream media failed to get it and largely continue to do so.
