14 Feb 2003

Posted at 16:13h in The Friday Brief by
High terror alerts across the nation have likely negatively impacted our economy of late, but the numbers from January look pretty good.  TheU.S.consumer continues to support this economy to the amazement of many economists.  Retail Sales excluding autos rose 1.3% last month, according to the Commerce Department.  Building materials, higher gasoline prices, and higher prices on imported goods helped boost the index.  Retail sales represent 30% of the U.S.economy.  

28 Jun 2002

Posted at 13:47h in The Friday Brief by
As a thermometer, the stock market notifies us of serious problems in our world.  It provides an up-to-the-moment measure of the sum of all investors’ views of the financial world’s present condition as well as its near-term future prospects.  But, the market is no more to blame for our woes than the thermometer is to blame for the fever.  The market has told us for some time that our illnesses go deeper than a hangover after the ‘party’ of the late nineties.  Indeed, we have discovered serious diseases in our world and our capitalistic institutions that require attention.

21 Jun 2002

Posted at 13:56h in The Friday Brief by
The economy is getting better, albeit very slowly and with some mixed signals.  Investors now choose to concentrate individual company announcements waiting for proof at the company level that things are getting better.  They are not yet willing to simply trust the government compilations alone.  Corporations must begin to show improvement individually. 

22 Mar 2002

Posted at 16:18h in The Friday Brief by
Investors’ primary focus continues to be on the economic indicators as we near the next round of corporate earnings pre-releases.  The week’s economic releases were decidedly more mixed than typical of the last few weeks, but the trend is still very good.  Tuesday’s news from the Fed caused some difficulty for the stock and the bond markets.  They left rates unchanged and dropped their stance that weakness poses the greatest threat to the economy, which was good news for economy watchers, but almost before the words were out, traders started selling stocks and bonds on fear that interest rates would soon be rising.  The Fed said “the information that has become available since the last meeting indicates that the economy, bolstered by a marked swing in inventory investment, is expanding at a significant pace.”