Consumer confidence ticks up

The Conference Board’s gauge of consumer confidence rose to 65.9 in July from 62.7 in June, better than the 61.5 economists expected. 

The Conference Board is a well respected organization with lots of experts, but we are wondering if they get out and about.


There seems to be a double disconnect. The folks who sit on the Conference Board don't seem to be in touch with what is happening on the ground. And reporters (actually, are there any real reporters any more or are they all covering celebrities and other fluff?) who cover local news are (pick one or more) not equipped to report on what is happening with regard to economic activity in their localities; not asked by their editors to report on such things; don't care; think WE don't care.


With all of the social media and technology and apps, can't someone come up with something that tracks all of the little mini malls and construction projects that are going to house retail operations and employ people? Or does the Conference Board claim to do this?


Because I am seeing lots of them in my limited travels, and either there is something going on out here on the ground or there are a lot of dumb people investing in new projects who are going to get burned soon and the whole thing really is going to hell in a handbasket.

P.S. As we were writing this, this got posted by FoxBusiness: The manufacturing sector in the U.S. Midwest expanded at a slightly swifter pace in July than it did the month before. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago’s PMI gauge came in at 53.7, higher than expectations of 52.5 and a reading of 52.9 in June.

Home prices creeping back

Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas climbed 2.2% in May from the month before on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, according the S&P/Case-Shiller report. That came in stronger than the 1.5% gain economists expected. Prices slipped 0.7% from the same month in 2011, a shallower fall than the 1.5% anticipated.

Housing coming back

US builders broke ground on the most new homes in nearly 4 years, sign of housing recovery - @AP

Dow down, says Fox

Taking a cue from Europe, [and, perhaps, from Warren Buffett's comments posted about an hour ago], U.S. markets are posting steep losses as traders worry about dimming global economic prospects and a sluggish response from policymakers. The broad S&P 500 is down 1%, while the Dow is off 90 points, or 0.71%, in choppy trading.Source: Fox email update

Chances are, we are wrong and Warren Buffett is right

(Reuters) - Warren Buffett made some of his most pessimistic comments on the economy in recent memory on Thursday, telling CNBC that things have slowed in the United States in the last six weeks.

More 


If we were you and we were asked to bet on us or Warren Buffett with regard to the question of whether the economy is back, we would bet on Mr. Buffett being correct. He is the whatever of Omaha, older, smarter, has made (considerably) more money than we have.


We are looking at things from totally different perspectives.


And, like we said, he is undoubtedly correct.

Trade deficit lower than expected

(Reuters) - The trade deficit narrowed slightly in May as a rise in exports, including those bound for Europe and China, eased the pain of a slowdown in the broader economy, a government report showed on Wednesday.

Congress grapples with evolution from paper to mobile money

 "We are, I think, on a precipice of some fundamental change in the way money is exchanged between consumers and businesses," Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said as she opened the first of a string of hearings in March. more

Do we not already have wire transfers, banking online, credit cards, toll-road transponders, PayPal, and myriad other ways to exchange currency? Why must befuddled government functionaries "begin hearings" and waste even more of the precious commodity? Stop grappling, and go find some waste to cut.

If a tree falls in a forest

Jeff Jordan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, wrote a guest post this week over at All Things Digital. He focuses on the disruption ecommerce is causing in the physical retail space — what he calls a "sea change in retail" — and makes an argument that ecommerce is going to wipe out physical retail across industries. More

So, like the tree falling the forest, dollars being spent by consumers in non-Dow-tracked industries like the commerce that goes on via eBay (NOT what goes with eBay stock, but the dollars EXCHANGED via eBay)...what about them? Do they not count? if I sell a book to you on eBay and make a profit on it, it may not show up on my taxes, right, yet it is still income, money that I could spend on something else.

The way we're calculating what is going on in today's economy just does not make any sense any more. 

Samsung makes $5.9 billiion profit on phones

 (Reuters) - Soaraway sales of the Galaxy smartphone drove record quarterly profit of $5.9 billion at Samsung Electronics, though the South Korean tech giant is fretting over how Europe's debt crisis is denting demand in its biggest market for televisions and home appliances. 


More


Lots of these purchases were made by Americans who are not exactly on the brink.

Neighborhood shopping centers creeping back

(Reuters) - Vacancy rates and rents at U.S. neighborhood shopping centers improved for the second quarter in a row, further evidence the sector is moving toward recovery after years of weakness, real estate research firm Reis said on Friday.

More


If journalists were not so lazy, the ramifications of this story would be written more at the local level.

Digital music sales up 14 per cent, setting a new record

People are spending money, They're just not spending it with companies that are part of the Dow. Which is why using the stock market to determine what today's economy is doing is an incorrect method.

Lots of other institutions have been disrupted; it's time to change the ways in which the experts tell us about what's going on with the economy.

Glass half empty headlines such as this fuel negative consumer sentiment

(Reuters) - A slew of weak economic data is casting doubts over expectations of a pick-up in growth in the second half of the year. From manufacturing to job growth to consumer spending, the numbers have been grim, and economists are wondering whether they need to dial down forecasts for the remainder of the year.

More of this story, headlined Analysis: Anxiety mounts as economy limps into second half

If politicians, worldwide, stopped being the idiots who cry wolf, screaming that we're on the edge and on the brink and on the precipice every eight seconds, maybe people could run their businesses better and not hold onto cash.

June private sector employment up higher than expected

ROSELAND, N.J. – July 5, 2012 – Private-sector employment increased by 176,000 from May to June on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report® released today. The ADP National Employment Report, created by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP®), in partnership with Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC, is derived from actual payroll data and measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month. The estimated gain from April to May was revised up slightly, from the initial estimate of 133,000 to a revised estimate of 136,000.

Layoffs leveling off

(Reuters) - The number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms fell in June to its lowest level in over a year, suggesting employers were not rapidly downsizing even as the economic recovery slows

Dated news such as this IMF item, out today, do not help

US economic recovery 'remains tepid,' according to annual report from IMF - @BBCNews

It would be responsible of news organizations to say when the report was concluded, which could have been weeks, or longer, ago. Not doing so does no service to anyone except the publisher, who seems to be on top of things, but in fact is not. Indeed, publishing items such as this is participating in disinformation.

Some car companies are up, factory orders up

Chrysler and Nissan have reported higher sales, as have VW and Ford. Fox Business is reporting that factory orders are up more than twice as much as expected.

Durable goods up 3x over expectations for May

Fox Business is reporting that "orders for durable goods rose 1.1% in May, beating expectations of a rise of 0.4%."

Consumer confidence down for fifth month in row

This is not surprising. The media is looking in the wrong places for indicators. It's not the stock market, which has a life of its own. It's not the economic experts who write the columns and the books and talk on TV. They are not out and about, seeing the empirical evidence. One of the problems is that the government has been like the little boy crying wolf for so long that no one believes any Democrat. And the Republicans are so focused on winning in November that there aren't any of them that will say anything positive. This is why the party system as we know it has to go. Both parties' missions have nothing to do with making life any easier for any of us. Ask any of your friends if they go to any malls where they don't see tons of people. Ditto for restaurants. Downshifting a vehicle does not make it stop. It means that it is adapting to new road conditions. That's what's going on with the economy right now. Downshifting. But, again, the big thing is that it is no one's best interest to say that the economy is doing well and picking up. No one will believe the Dems and the R's ain't gonna say it.

Stock market run wild is driving our lives?

Here's a book description for Dark Pools.

So we are all working our asses off and a couple of jerks who manipulate bots are driving what happens with the economy?

Hello? This is what Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison wanted?

A news-breaking account of the global stock market's subterranean battles, Dark Pools portrays the rise of the "bots"- artificially intelligent systems that execute trades in milliseconds and use the cover of darkness to out-maneuver the humans who've created them. In the beginning was Josh Levine, an idealistic programming genius who dreamed of wresting control of the market from the big exchanges that, again and again, gave the giant institutions an advantage over the little guy. Levine created a computerized trading hub named Island where small traders swapped stocks, and over time his invention morphed into a global electronic stock market that sent trillions in capital through a vast jungle of fiber-optic cables. By then, the market that Levine had sought to fix had turned upside down, birthing secretive exchanges called dark pools and a new species of trading machines that could think, and that seemed, ominously, to be slipping the control of their human masters. Dark Pools is the fascinating story of how global markets have been hijacked by trading robots--many so self-directed that humans can't predict what they'll do next.

Dark Pools: High-Speed Traders, A.I. Bandits, and the Threat to the Global Financial System

Kroger says it is going to start adding stores

Kroger Co. said last week that 2012 could mark the reversal of a trend in store-count decline that the company has seen for the past several years. Read More: http://supermarketnews.com/retail-amp-financial/kroger-eyes-new-store-growth-after-years-declines#ixzz1yuVNG3qK

House prices up in April

Fox is reporting this; The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas shows home prices rose 1.3% in April on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, a significantly bigger increase than the 0.5% expected. The gauge fell by 1.9% in April from the same month a year earlier, less than the 2.5% decline expected.

New home sales shoot up in May

(Reuters) - New single-family home sales surged in May to a one-year high and prices rose from a year ago amid tightening supply, further signs the housing market was gaining some momentum. More on rising new home sales

Jobless claims down slightly last week

New claims for unemployment benefits fell to 387,000 last week from an upwardly revised 389,000 the week prior. Claims were expected to fall to 380,000 from an initially reported 386,000. Source: Fox Business

Housing permits up in May

Housing permits rose 7.9% to a 780,000-unit rate, the highest since September 2008 and above economists' forecasts of a 728,000-unit rate. Housing starts, however, were down.

GDP not cutting it as composite metric any more

There is a shared recognition that conventional indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) are failing to capture the scope countries' wealth. Even in the global recession, many economies appear to be getting wealthier. More on GDP as a failing metric.

June home builder sentiment highest in five years: NAHB