Production and Capacity Utilization Up
by Chart School - September 16th, 2009 10:41 am
Production and Capacity Utilization Up
Courtesy of Econompic Data
Marketwatch reports:
The output of the nation’s factories, mines and utilities rose 0.8% in August. Output was also much stronger in July than first estimated, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. The August increase was just a bit better than expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. Analysts had been expecting a 0.7% gain. Capacity utilization – a gauge of slack in the economy — rose to 69.6% in August from a revised 69.0% in July. There were gains across the board in August. Manufacturing expanded 0.6% in August. Excluding autos and auto parts, manufacturing rose 0.4%.
An economic rebound is definitely under way, how fast and far that rebound is remains to be seen. That said, I am impressed by the strength in output outside of the manufacturing sector. As I detailed yesterday, capacity utilization has historically had a strong relationship with employment.

In addition, the increase in capacity utilization decreases the worry over deflation (though not out of the woods yet). The relationship between capacity utilization and inflation was detailed here and we may be seeing the beginning stages of what may be a reflationary period that the broader investment community had been worried about for some time.
The Statistical Recovery, Part Three
by ilene - August 23rd, 2009 3:01 pm
The Statistical Recovery, Part Three
Courtesy of John Mauldin at Thoughts from the Frontline
The Statistical Recovery, Part Three
Capacity Utilization Set to Rise
A Real Estate Green Shoot?
The Deleveraging Society
Some Thoughts on Secular Bear Markets
Weddings and Ten Years of Thoughts From the Frontline
This week we further explore why this recovery will be a Statistical Recovery, or one that, as someone said, is a recovery only a statistician could love. We look at capacity utilization, more on housing, some thoughts on debt and deflation, and some intriguing charts on volatility in the last secular bear-market cycle. This letter will print a little longer, but there are lots of charts. I have written this during the week, and I finish it here in Tulsa, where Amanda gets married tomorrow. (There is no deflation in weddings costs!)
Thanks to so many of you for your enthusiastic feedback about my latest Accredited
For those of you who seek to take advantage of these themes and the developments I write about each week, let me again mention my good friend Jon Sundt at Altegris Investments, who is my US partner. Jon and his team have recently added some of the more successful names in the industry to their dedicated platform of alternative investments, including commodity pools, hedge
If you haven’t spoken with them in a while, it’s worth checking out their new lineup of world-class managers. Jon also tells me they just added yet more brilliant minds to their research team, making it,…


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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...









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