Factory Orders Fall More Than Expected; Recovery Withers on the Vine
by ilene - July 2nd, 2010 4:25 pm
Factory Orders Fall More Than Expected; Recovery Withers on the Vine
Courtesy of Mish
The "nascent recovery" was led by manufacturing and now the one bright spot is showing signs of age, just as state payrolls are about to get clobbered.
Please consider Orders to U.S. Factories Declined in May More Than Forecast.
Orders placed with U.S. factories declined in May more than forecast, a sign that manufacturing may be starting to cool.
The 1.4 percent decrease in bookings was the biggest since March 2009 and followed a revised 1 percent gain in April, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Economists forecast orders would drop 0.5 percent, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey.
Estimates of total orders in the Bloomberg survey of 70 economists ranged from a decline of 2 percent to a gain of 1.5 percent. The decrease in May was the first in nine months.
Manufacturing in June expanded at the slowest pace this year as factories received fewer orders and demand from abroad slowed, a report showed yesterday. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing gauge fell to 56.2 from 59.7 a month earlier. Readings greater than 50 indicate expansion. The Tempe, Arizona- based group’s new orders measure fell to the lowest level since October.
Demand for durable goods, which make up just over half of total factory demand, decreased 0.6 percent in May. Shipments of durable goods fell 0.3 percent.
Bookings of non-durable goods, including food, petroleum and chemicals, decreased 2.1 percent. The decline reflected a drop in the value of orders for petroleum products, clothing, fertilizers and beverages.
Orders for capital goods excluding aircraft and military equipment, a measure of future business investment, increased 3.9 percent after a 2.8 percent drop in April. Shipments of these goods, used in calculating gross domestic product, rose 1.4 percent after rising 0.4 percent.
Factory inventories declined 0.4 percent in May, and manufacturers had enough goods on hand to last 1.25 months at the current sales pace.
Recovery Withers on the Vine
You should not have to be a genius to figure out the rebound in manufacturing was a result of four factors now withering on the vine.
- Inventory replenishment
- Unsustainable stimulus
- Housing incentives pushing demand forward on appliances
- Rebound in auto sales from extremely depressed levels
Is Europe going to lead the world recovery? China? US Consumers?
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Why the “Nascent Recovery” Won’t Last
by ilene - April 27th, 2010 3:30 am
Why the "Nascent Recovery" Won’t Last
Courtesy of Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds
The "nascent recovery" continues to be nascent a year later. Why? Because it’s constructed on sand and hyped by smoke and mirrors.
The "nascent recovery" will soon be revealed as "failed" rather than "nascent." How long can "nascent" be deployed as cover for a "recovery" constructed of propaganda, manipulated statistics and "confidence-building" spin?
As my esteemed blogging colleague Mish pointed out not long ago, "nascent" continues to be the word of choice in the MSM, as if no one dares declare the "recovery" real for fear that such a claim will be easily revealed as utterly false. So to keep the spin machine intact, the "recovery" will remain "nascent" as cover for the less rosy reality.
Let’s run through the fundamental reasons the recovery is bogus, not nascent.
1. Propaganda and "confidence-building" are constantly substituted for reality. The problem, we are repeatedly told, is a "lack of confidence." Consumers’ and corporations’ accounts are bulging with idle trillions awaiting "renewed confidence" to gush back into the economy, creating millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth.
Here is a typical example:
Forecasters optimistic about economy, job creation
How many MSM stories have you read which refer to the "162,000 jobs created last month" as evidence that the "economy is turning around? Dozens, if not hundreds. How many note that the 162,000 number is entirely bogus, boosted by temporary Census Bureau hiring and tens of thousands of fictitious "birth/death model" phantom jobs?
The spin, hype and forced good cheer is essentially unlimited. As I write, stocks are up on news that Caterpillar reported an 11% decline in revenue to $8.24 billion, a huge "miss" since analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast $8.84 billion in revenue.
The "surge in profits" didn’t come from sales; it came from squeezing costs, a strategy which has some upper limit of effectiveness on goosing the bottom line.
Machinery sales surged 40% in the Asia-Pacific region, but of course no one explores the source of that "surge:" out of control spending on empty cities and luxury highrises in China. If that unprecedented real estate bubble in China ever pops-- and can any bubble continue forever?--then Cat sales will go into freefall.
That’s not "confidence building" so it goes unsaid, despite being glaringly obvious.
2. Tax/borrow and spend is alive…
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Weaker Data and the “Nascent Recovery”
by ilene - November 22nd, 2009 2:31 pm
A "mirage" of recovery, dependent on government stimulus programs, is not exactly a recovery in the normal sense of the word. And publicizing incorrect numbers, only to revise them down later, appears to be good for public mood and the stock market. - Ilene
Weaker Data and the "Nascent Recovery"
Courtesy of Mish
After spending $trillions one would have hoped to see something more than an expected GDP revision of 2.8%. Looking ahead MarketWatch is asking Do weaker data show recovery is stalling?
Last week, a "reality check" rippled through the markets following weak data on housing starts and industrial production, said Nigel Gault and Brian Bethune, U.S. economists for IHS Global Insight. They expect further "mixed and somewhat ambiguous" reports in the coming week, but, on whole, they say "the evidence is still positive and continues to point to a nascent recovery" that will need "strong policy support" for some time.
Housing
Even four years after the peak, the state of the housing market remains central to the medium-term outlook.
Construction, sales and prices picked up over recent months after hitting generational lows, boosted in part by federal policies and in part by improvement in some of the fundamentals. But the weakening in the October data ahead of the anticipated expiration of the federal home-buying subsidy has put the strength of those fundamentals to the test.
The home-buyer tax credit, of course, has now been extended and even expanded. But buyers and builders didn’t know that in October.
Last week, we found out that builders cut back on permits and starts on single-family homes in October, in anticipation that the tax credit would expire on Nov. 30.
GDP revisions
The other big story for the week could be the revision to third-quarter growth figures. Last month, the Commerce Department said real gross domestic product grew at a 3.5% annualized rate, the first gain in a year. On Tuesday, that figure is likely to be revised to about 2.8%.
The largest source of revisions will come from nonresidential construction spending and net exports. Spending on nonresidential structures was weaker than first thought, while imports were stronger than believed, suggesting that more of the gains from increased sales in the third quarter accrued to foreign producers, rather than domestic companies. Inventories will be revised lower.
"Despite the likely downward revision, we still believe that the third
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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...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.