Yes, Retail Sales Matter and we have a fresh one just off the press over at Census. Here’s how it looks:
Advance Estimates of U.S. Retail and Food Services Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December 2016, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $469.1 billion, an increase of 0.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, and 4.1 percent (±0.9 percent) above December 2015. Total sales for the 12 months of 2016 were up 3.3 percent (±0.6 percent) from 2015. Total sales for the October 2016 through December 2016 period were up 4.1 percent (±0.7 percent) from the same period a year ago. The October 2016 to November 2016 percent change was revised from up 0.1 percent (±0.5 percent)* to up 0.2 percent (±0.2 percent)*. Retail trade sales were up 0.8 percent (±0.5 percent) from November 2016, and up 4.3 percent (±0.7 percent) from last year. Nonstore retailers were up 13.2 percent (±1.8 percent) from December 2015, while Miscellaneous stores were up 7.1 percent (±4.6 percent) from last year.
Think I was kidding about Car Sales Save America? Lookie here, bucko…
The main thing about retail sales is that it gives us an indication of how consumers are either sitting on their wallets or “going spendthrift.” Year end auto closeouts rolled…
In a very specific consumer sector, we can already see how the current five waves up in the market will end this year (although early 2018 is possible, too).
Let me show you the Federal Reserve’s Economic Data dispenser’s view of consumer gasoline prices and two possible outcomes:
Remember, from the branching point is November Data and this chart (less my scrawls) will be updated next week when the new Consumer Price data (the gasoline data) comes out.
My personal expectation is for the red line’s track because that would make the most logical sense. In which case, overall consumer prices will begin rising (more, faster) and then along will come inflation at the retail level and then the Fed will have its rate-hike justifications and then we would end with a “normal” recession during the first year of a Presidency.
It may not be meaningful – just interesting – that Google’s news search returns 7.49-million hits on the word “inflation” yet only 232-thousand on the word Deflation. The reason it’s not necessarily meaningful is the government response to all crises is to simply print money and people have come to expect inflation, not deflation.
In my curmudgeonly view, there’s a hell of a lot of pent-up inflation out there and it’s one of the things that should send the stock market to the moon – just before collapse.
To show you what I mean, in January 2015 the Federal Reserve H.6 Money Stocks report showed unadjusted M2 was running $11.727 trillion. Fast forward to the latest data and M2 unadjusted was $13.341 trillion. That’s a 13.76 percent increase in money in the system in a month less than 2-years.
You might generalize this into 6.8% per year inflation to make life easy. And then look at yesterday’s Money Stocks update where the Fed says, in effect, “Oh yeah – in the past year we jacked up money supplies at M2 by 7.6 percent…
The Fed apparently doesn’t like Donald Trump, much, either: Notice the M1 (cash and short term money) has all but gone flat line now. And since we can look at monthly data, we see M1 was reduced from $3.354 trillion in ELECTION MONTH down to $3.3207 after Trump won.
This is not to accuse the central banksters of playing politics with the economy, but clearly they have not only slammed on the brakes, but they have the ABS buzzing on M1 right now.
Are the Bankers Planning to Sack Trump?
That becomes an interesting question.
Let’s consider the 10-year Treasury through its traded proxy the ^TNX which you can find detailed on Yahoo Finance over here.
Notice that days before the election, the 10-year Note was running around 1.78%. However, after peaking in the vicinity of 2.58% in December, the reality of “oh-oh, we may really slide into Depression” crept back into thinking and yesterday closed at 2.361(%).
This is a hell of a problem for the Fed. They have been on the rubber chicken circuit this week telling anyone who will listen that three rate hikes in 2017 is the plan because the economy will be…er….all…”all out indicators”…blah, blah, blah…
That’s all true…but only as far as that data goes. When you look at November’s Stupid Consumer Yoke of Debt Report (the Fed calls it Consumer Credit for obvious reasons – they look out for bankster), people were blowing out credit card spending at a rate 13.5% higher than a year ago.
Well hell yes, that would require some hefty hikes.
But I doubt it will carry through. As usual, I expect the Fed will fall victim to “continuation bias” and be ready to apply just the wrong policy – but they won’t see that one coming except in the review mirror since the report out this week (Jan ’17) reflects November ’16 result.
With two MONTHS of lag-time, the rubber chicken people are hearing yesterday’s news.
More useful, I think, is the Gallup Economic Confidence Index. Presently, it is spiking up (supportive of the Fed hikes planned) but I would expect it will decline as the reality of Congress keeping most if not all of the Obamacare tax revenue in place will depress people out here in fly-over country.
Should the Market hit an All-Time-High in the 21,500 range by, oh, March or so, that would mean by May the Fed would be moderating their tone – belatedly saying maybe it was too much, too fast. Or not… I mean we shall see.
But in the meantime the reality of “inflation buzz” has kicked gold up to the $1,200 area and if I remember, I’ll try to get an updated Elliott and trend chart cobbled up.
Best I can hope for is America is mired in a “muddle-through” right now. We have a bit of encouragement in the very short-term (less than 6-months view) but in the longer term we have not come to terms with things like anti-human tax laws and pro-robotics policy that actually kills future job creation.
Lacking a massive investment in R&D (to not only catch up with but to surpass China and others) we look like a middle-of-the-pack country where Peter Pan (Trump) is trying to lead the (Lost Boys/Lost Country) to a new paradigm by defeating Hook (the PTB) and no one wants to admit that 30-year duration investments are no longer viable in an internet/video world.
Even 10-years is a stretch.
The 54-year Kondratieff cycle is merging into our 83-year currency cycle and the purchasing power of the dollar is undeniably down 96% compared with 1913.
So if you have a hard time getting up this morning and getting motivated to have another “average” day at work, can’t say as I blame you.
The reality is that most people under 40 may never be able to retire and gee, kinda kills the buzz about going to work, don’t it? Just think where AI and Robotics will be in 25-30 years when “retirement” comes along. Good luck with that.
We now return you to the rest of today’s dismal.
Life in the Trumpy-Pulpit
Who needs a news network when we can just splice up Trump Tweets? Go direct, cut out middlemen. From Twitter:
“Donald J. Trump ?@realDonaldTrump
2 hours ago
It now turns out that the phony allegations against me were put together by my political opponents and a failed spy afraid of being sued…. released by “Intelligence” even knowing there is no proof, and never will be. My people will have a full report on hacking within 90 days!
What are Hillary Clinton’s people complaining about with respect to the F.B.I. Based on the information they had she should never….. have been allowed to run – guilty as hell. They were VERY nice to her. She lost because she campaigned in the wrong states – no enthusiasm!
The “Unaffordable” Care Act will soon be history!”
All in favor of buying the president-elect a case of Ambien so he can sleep, please say aye…
Seriously: Is there a correlation between Trump outburst intensities and moon phases? Like isn’t this the full moon?
NY Times Trump-Bashing Redux
Does it ever end?
Now they’re after him for not enough women, not enough whatever. Forget the Trump numbers are what Bush rolled with…and is better than Reagan and…oh, where’s my nitro pill?
No, not fake news this (they get one point for that) but I can see where it goes: Next we will read not enough gays, trans, and misc. illegal offspring to please the Northeast Liberals.
If this sounds odd to you, too, it’s because Trump ran for an won office, not the NY Times, which is the point I was getting to. They can’t seem to wrap around that.
But like the old newspapering joke: “Know what news is? It’s the filler between the ads.”
AFM.
Promoting Paul Ryan
Stupid headlines about this morning: USA Today headlines “Paul Ryan: Russia a ‘menace,’ Putin ‘menacing’.”
Um, let me see: Putin helped overthrow old-line communism in Russia. Has Paul Ryan overthrown the good-old boy’s K Street lock on the Hill? No?
So who is the menace, here?
Here’s hoping USA Today’s favorable coverage works out for Ryan like it did for Clinton…
Facebook’s Brain-Control Project
Looks like it’s leaking out in stories like this one.
This topic could be extremely interesting. Not just because of what might be found (don’t worry the tech is decades from wireless) but because it could be pumped to government agencies.
Those spy agencies, when not tripping over their own pechewzelwhackers on decraptic fake news, have been busily building a huge file on EVERYONE in America – even people who haven’t committed crimes. The idea is to get all information about everyone into a single repository for all agencies to share.
Scary zhit.
Obama Schizo-gration
Memo: To UrbanSurvival Staff Shrink
WTF is with Obama now?
He obviously is trying to flood the country with unsavory illegals…but now he wants to return illegally entering Cuban refugees?
Is there some kind of secret commie-deal our favorite Alinsky-ite ain’t disclosing? I mean we kick out those from communist countries and teach Syrians how to use fake passports and dump ICE picks on unwary Southwest cities? Seriously WTF?
Why doesn’t Trump have ICE dump some in Chappaqua and outside of Obama’s new digs?
The only reason to change the policy on Cubans is to further appease the Cuban Government. Obama is trying to make nice with R. Castro. One last jab at this country before he goes. Watch him empty Gitmo and our prisons in the week he has left.
The mutt cant be gone quick enough go away. Dump the fed reserve all debt goes away people then are free
I’m curious what you mean by mutt? It usually refers to a mixed breed or non pure one.
The auto industry may have saved corporate America, if you can believe that chart, but it continues to massacre mainstream America, saddling it with more debt. Auto loans now exceed student loans and credit card debt and with so many “subprime” loans that loans 90 days in arrears are at record levels. Almost half of new car sales are the result of rolling over the previous loan into a 7-8 year loan with a beginning balance that exceeds the full retail value of the vehicle. This follows the neat trick of the six million home loans that are upside down. The reason people don’t bail on these? They get a tax bill on the amount of the loan not recovered, and living paycheck to paycheck this tax bill would simply bankrupt them and literally put them on the street.
The only thing one needs to realize in this sh-t storm of economic numbers is that the government has been relabeling inflation as growth. This solves two problems. Pensions do not have to be adjusted upward, and the alleged growth in GDP keeps the depression word out of the media. This little trick is simply beyond the grasp of most Americans. How do I know? The fed has been doing this for the last 10 years.
George,
I don’t know if reading minds it accurate. I think it is more they are trying to modify thoughts or direct them the way they want people to think. Since it is FakeBook, seems to me the it is certianly more of the younger generation. Most of the over 50 cowd may use it sometimes but they do not live and die by it like the younger genereation. Between publik education and fakebook the likes of a Bernie Sanders will be President within the next 20 years.
You do have to admit that even though Trump has not yet been inaugurated …he is more “open and transparent” with his tweets than (bypassing the MSM interpretation) of what he is saying. A lot like Urban Survival. He tells it like he sees it…My type of communicator…
You do have to admit that even though Trump has not yet been inaugurated …he is more “open and transparent” with his tweets than (bypassing the MSM interpretation) of what he is saying. A lot like Urban Survival. He tells it like he sees it…My type of communicator…
Possibly Obama’s move on Cuban refugees is due to the election. Arguably, the Cuban vote put Trump over the top in Florida. Maybe it’s Obama’s pay back?
I’m dismayed at people trashing Trump for his Tritter comments. Not so long ago the unwashed masses were bitching about a lack of POTUS transparency and now they’re squawking about Trump regularly talking directly to WE THE PEOPLE and [more importantly] doing so without the deceitful filters/spins of the MSM. I find it refreshing to have a new CIC who freely speaks -right or wrong- his mind about anything/everything… even the trivial. KNOW WHY?
Because he is CONNECTING with us. And beyond that, he is also connecting with the global populace; those faceless souls who are disenfranchised by the manipulations of their own governments who are steadily becoming transfixed by this “new” way of doing things through direct and immediate communication. Don’t you realize that little-by-little and with every tweet, Trump is reshaping the way the world looks at America and our lost values? By bitching about Rosie O’Donnell’s snarky comments or publicly taking to task an arrogant CNN reporter, Trump is once again saying “ENOUGH of this CRAP! – if you’re not a part of the solution then you’re a part of the problem.” And, every street kid, every businessman, every diplomat with internet access in even the most impoverished of nations is getting the
message loudly and clearly: The United States is once again going to STAND FOR SOMETHING and it isn’t going to be pre-packaged to make it easier to swallow. Sometimes the most bitter medicines do you the most good and this is just the prescription that our nation needs. We of the older generation remember how vile the taste of Castor Oil was when we swallowed it when ill, but we also recall that it made us feel alot better shortly thereafter. Those complaining the most loudly today have only ingested sugar-coated palliatives and non-remedies that only masked the illness instead of curing it!
Naysayers can scream about his pettiness and combative personality all they want to, but as the old saying goes: “if you don’t make waves… your boat ain’t movin’!”
Well, America’s flagship has once again proudly sailed with pennants flying and crisply-saluting sailors lining it’s decks. Not such a bad image, that. Just don’t expect Trump to stop with only a quick yacht club jaunt – the entire world is his new port-of-call and he’s going to sail the United States back into the history books of progressive leadership.
Those regular, personal off-the-cuff-but-on-the-record comments are all part of Trump’s plan to ‘make America Great Again’ even if it’s only one tweet at a time. And it was working even before he was elected as evidenced by the numbers of rallies in other nations who supported him and his public views as he stood for something they could all believe in. Too bad so many of our own citizens stubbornly cling to the blinders that have been clamped over their eyes by decades of D.C. deceptions and media misrepresentations.
So, I’ll take that kind of global encouragement in a heartbeat!
Gee, when the whole world and everybody in it BELIEVE exactly all the crap that you do — and everyone behaves exactly the way you want them to — would you be happy then? Sorry but it ain’t going to happen. All you BELIEVERS will soon enough see what happens when far too many people completely disassemble and destroy this whole planet — (over 50% of the way there now!) — I only feel sorry for all the innocent animals, fish and insects that we are torturing and killing even now. Can’t wait to watch all you BELIEVERS beat the hell out of each other — nice to be so smart and know all the answers and what’s right and wrong and good and bad for everyone, everywhere. You only have to be careful about one thing — leave ME — alone!
HMMMM: you mention the word “BELIEVERS” three times but you’re never quite clear about what I -or you- believe in. I was simply stating that Trump’s tweets are being read by -and impacting the thoughts of- common citizens all around the globe, including those in nations made hostile through the actions of Obama.
I further made the point that these same people -who previously had been taught to HATE the U.S.- may just change their minds when they hear our POTUS expressing himself directly to the masses without the usual spectre of blatant propaganda coloring his words.
There was no anger or confrontation in my remarks. How different from your own!
Is that you, Jon, I see that you are back with more BS. Your pile on ain’t working, we can spot a crapper a mile away because now you are blaming our whole past on one man Trump! Get a grip, gripper, get on the right side for once! Bitching and complaining ain’t gonna take you anywhere! Get on board the Trump Train and Make America Great Again!
Thank you, your post is CERTAINLY the high road AND the necessary road to lasting peace – THE TRUTH! We are sick of lies! Just think of all the lies we have been force fed over the last 50 years! AMERICA IS AWAKE! THE WORLD IS STIRRING – TIME IS AFOOT!
LOL! The NY Times used to complain that Donald Trump had too many women! Now they’re complaining that he doesn’t have enough. WTF?
Regarding cabinet picks, I only want to see the absolute best. Even Mother Nature seeks the fittest.
“All in favor of buying the president-elect a case of Ambien so he can sleep, please say aye…” I suspect he sleeps like a baby… but rather than waking up every two hours to cry, he wakes up to tweet. Maybe he should wait to tweet until after he’s had a healthy, brain-fog clearing breakfast… or until after lunch or dinner.
Some thoughts.
I expect the Trump years will be fully loaded with turmoil. TPTB are going to go away or allow their rebellious livestock out here to jump the fence. IMO, if we don’t get a better grip on the country in the next few years, the only alternative will be hot lead.
There was a finance guru in the 90’s who gave two pieces of advice I followed to my benefit. Every time any insurance comes up for renewal, shop around. It took a few years, but I now am with an insurer that is the best I ever had. He also said never buy a new car; only look at top notch two year olds. Fortunately for the economy, most people (and businesses) ignore that advice.
I expect POTUS to cause the worst possible future problems for us all in this last week. He might even try refusing to leave.
What insurance carrier is top notch? I would like to get a quote. Thx.
Keep seeing comments about Trumps smarts. Seems like anybody got to be president with the PTB and MSM so against must be a little brighter than a lot of the herd.
The article says it’s not wireless YET, but see this patent:
6506148 B2
Those tweets aren’t transparency. They’re propaganda. Because you agree you think it’s Truth, like the burning bush. If you didn’t agree you’d be calling Truth fake news.
Transparency is releasing tax returns, holding press conferences, answering questions, giving interviews to reporters besides Hannity and allowing the press to look at Manila folders when Trump uses them as props.
Btw what happened to trump’s promise to release info related to hacking that only he knows? Or his promise to release exculpatory info that he didn’t sexually harass those women? Or to sue them once the election was over?