Tag: economy
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Consumers shift spending to services from big ticket items
Pent up demand for dining out and other entertainment services shifted money away from big ticket items that were popular during the height of the pandemic. Spending was flat over all but money shifted from one thing to another as people started emerging from their homes. Spending was flat last month as consumers cut back…
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Jobless claims on the rise
Is this something to worry about or a temporary blip? My guess is that it’s a temporary blip. I don’t expect anything near normal with the economy and employment until some time next year. It is a little odd though with so many jobs open that there would be more an increase in unemployment filings.…
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Investors jumping into risky bundled collateralized loans
This smells of what happened just prior to the 2008 global economic recession. Issuance of new collateralized loan obligations, which buy up loans to companies with junk credit ratings and package them into securities, totaled over $59 billion as of May 20, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence’s’ LCD. That is the highest ever figure…
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Consumer retail sales surge
Here’s some good news. Seems people are out there continuing to spend. Retail sales are up. Retail sales—a measure of purchases at stores, at restaurants and online—overall were unchanged last month from March, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That kept spending at the same pace set by March’s upwardly revised 10.7% advance, which was influenced by…
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It was a rough day today and may get much more rough in the near future
The last couple of days have not been kind and today was worse than yesterday. But, in context it’s not all that bad if you consider where the market was at the beginning of 2020 versus where it is today. All that said I think investors should be extremely cautious right now because sometimes when…
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WSJ searching for the pin that will pop the current economic bubble
I expect this will be like all the previous bubbles. We only found out what the pin was after the bubble popped. The Fed report this past week said the virus remains the biggest threat to the economy and thus the financial system. April’s jobs disappointment was a reminder of how unsettled the economic outlook…