Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyWhy Midterms Likely Mean a Booming Retail Season There are multiple reasons why this holiday retail season is likely to be great, but there is one key reason why it could blow the door off of records. First, let's state the obvious reasons why this year's retail season could be a record-breaker:GDP trending near ...

The U.S.-China trade debacle has yet to cease, but according to a CNBC report on Nov. 1, Chinese exports and imports flourished in October, reaching a trade surplus of $31.78 billion with the U.S. Despite economists' predictions of an overall $35 billion trade surplus, the country's General Administration of Customs reported it was nearly $1 billio...

The Nov. 6 election saw record voter turnouts across the country, making history in gubernatorial and Congressional elections. Results flooded in, changing the balance of power in the House of Representatives and shaking up statewide legislation. The construction industry saw changes too, primarily in terms of funding public projects. Several state...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyThe New Political Reality It looks quite a bit like the old political reality, but with some new wrinkles that will play a bigger role as 2020 gets closer. By now, you have heard the major stories—the Senate is more firmly in the hands of the GOP with the loss of three Democratic incumbents. The House is now in t...

Another initiative to push e-payments in and paper checks out of the business-to-business (B2B) sphere emerged recently, this new method using libraries in a Business Payments Network (BPN). Visa and Billtrust announced an open buyer and supplier payments platform designed to digitize the payment chain between businesses.Most consumers have switche...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyHiring Is Up and so Are Wages The latest jobs report showed some movement as far as wages are concerned. This has been long overdue. It is not the rocket speed some had feared and there is still relatively little pressure on wage inflation, but a least there are gains considered near normal. The fact is there are...

The effects of Hurricane Florence and tariffs on imported goods impacted 2018's Q3, seeing a 5.2% quarterly decline in freight shipments, according to the U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index. Year-over-year, freight shipments fell by 1.1%. Even with these drops, freight spend still increased by 13.5%, year-over-year. Constrained trucking capacity limit...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyLabor ReportThere were some aspects of the latest labor report that were eagerly awaited. For the most part, the news has been better than many had expected. The wage hike most had been expecting did indeed materialize with a 3.1% annual rate. That is as good as has been seen since the start of the recession. The...

One of the strongest storms to hit the U.S. since 1935 struck western U.S. territories Oct. 25, leaving more than 100 injured and one dead, according to KUAM News. Relief efforts continue, now with help from federal funds as a Major Disaster Declaration for Super Typhoon Yutu was confirmed Oct. 27. With such devastating damage, rebuilding efforts w...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyConsumer Confidence at 18-Year High The latest numbers from the Conference Board are out and are quite a surprise. They might not be all that indicative of the real mood of the U.S. consumer, but they are astonishing. By now, readers of this newsletter know I do not place much stock in consumer confidence numbers...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyInflation Remains Tepid There are many ways to measure inflation. Some are more variable than others. Economists are often dinged for the way they treat core inflation numbers. We routinely ignore the price of fuel and food as these can be very volatile month to month. It's hard to make accurate assessments of ho...

After a string of solid results in NACM's Credit Managers' Index (CMI) starting this past spring, the predictive index is at its worst output since April. The October CMI reading dropped nearly two points to 54.5 from 56.4 in September. "This is not an emergency situation to be sure as these numbers are still solidly in the mid-50s, but it isn't th...

The current debt levels of U.S. oilfield and drilling (OFS) companies is unsustainable over the long term. According to Moody's Investors Service, OFS companies need a "substantial improvement in cash flow." "U.S. oilfield services and drilling companies' high debt levels will continue to constrain their credit quality in 2019 and beyond," said Sre...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyConsumer Sentiment Up but Not as High as BeforeThe level of consumer confidence has been elevated all year. This is better than it being lower than usual, but given that consumer confidence surveys can be notoriously fickle it is hard to really understand what they are indicating. This month, the level of confide...

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in the U.K. announced this week that larger firms that do not pay their suppliers on time should be stripped of government contracts. Late payments have caused nearly 50,000 companies annually to shut down, according to The Guardian. The firms owe tens of billions of pounds, and the closures of these compani...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyGovernment Spending Pushes Economy Forward Specifically, it has been the rise in defense spending that has done the propelling. The increase was due to an increase in the purchase of aircraft and aircraft parts. This is one of the largest gains in years and has been attributed to the heavy use of air power in mos...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyU.S. Selling Fewer Treasuries This hardly qualifies as a crisis yet, but it bears watching. The share of foreign investment in U.S. bonds has rarely been this low. It stands at 41%. Even as recently as two years ago, the percentage was 50%. The yields for U.S. treasuries have been generally down—the 10-year bond ...

The global equity market is reacting to geopolitical tensions as the price of copper fell amid the death of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the slowing demand of copper in China, according to a recent article by Reuters. Benchmark copper fell a total of 0.7%, now costing a total of $6,196 per ton. Today, Turkey's president stated the d...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyBarriers to Higher Wage Growth There has been something missing as far as the economy has been concerned. The issue has been persistent enough to create some real issues. Every study of the economy over the last several decades has revealed a logical connection between the levels of employment and wages. The logi...

Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Eddie Lampert is in the process of finding a financing partner for the company's bankruptcy filing. According to Reuters, Lampert's private equity firm, ESL Investments, has talked with investment firm, Cyrus Capital Partners LP, about sharing the financial burden of a $300 million loan.Meanwhile, some of Sears' vendor...