Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyFed Pushback on Yield Curve Debate As with most assertions regarding economic cause and effect, there are flaws in the logic. The belief is that an inverted yield curve is the precursor to a recession. While that has been true, there has always been a lot of variance. That recession may take two or three years to...

When NACM's Credit Managers' Index (CMI) drops, so does the confidence of many credit managers. This was the case in March when the service sector stunted the growth in the overall score, hinting at further unpredictability in coming months.The CMI was unable to hold onto February's growth, but instead, reeled back to a score previously seen earlie...

Ports on the West Coast of the U.S. saw the "busiest seven months in history," according to  Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, which then ended in February. A recent article by ​Supply Chain Dive​ indicates much of the sudden dip in imports is due to 2018's global trade chaos, citing primarily the U.S.-China trade wars a...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyInverted Yield Curve Arrives—Time to Panic? When there is an inverted yield curve, there is a school of thought that assumes a recession is imminent—after all the last seven recessions have featured just such an inverted curve. This is when the 10-year bond yield falls below that of the three-year bond. The inver...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyEmployment Data Remains Strong By almost any measure, the job market has been staying strong. There was another week of reduced jobless claims, which tends to offset the fears regarding the slower than expected job growth reported last week. The job market is still better defined by the shortages that persist tha...

Existing-home sales are back on track following a down start to 2019. Sales in February recorded their best month-over-month gain since December 2015, states the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Total existing-home sales were up 11.8% from January. "A powerful combination of lower mortgage rates, more inventory, rising income and higher cons...

With the first quarter of 2019 nearly completed, the global economic outlook for the rest of the year looks bleak, yet a recession is not on its way, according to Fitch Ratings. Much of the slowdown in growth comes from the eurozone and China and from the U.S.-China trade wars.The global growth forecast continues to decline, with Fitch downgrading ...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyJobs and Housing The labor shortage crisis shows no signs of abating. By most accounts, it will worsen in the future as more and more of the Boomer generation retire and stay retired. There are many reasons employers have been unable to find the people they need—lack of skilled people in the hiring pipeline has b...

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump grounded all of Boeing's 737 Max (Max) aircraft after a fatal crash in Ethiopia—the second Max crash in the past six months. Today, credit professionals at Fitch Ratings say this decision won't have "a new-term negative effect" on airlines' credit but could potentially cause problems over time.According to Fit...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyManufacturing Decline The slowdown in the manufacturing sector has extended to two months according to the data released by the Fed. The level of output at U.S. factories fell by another 0.4%. That is on top of the decline from the month before. This is hardly a crash, but it means that most of the manufacturing ...

The first two months of 2019 proved kind to the construction industry, where input prices increased monthly and annually. However, if the predictions of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Chief Economist Anirban Basu are true, the sector will experience different results in the coming months.Construction input prices have dwindled over the p...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyHousing Sector Off to Weak Start The expectation for this year was not especially high given all the accumulated issues affecting the housing sector, but the latest data in new home starts has been weaker than expected. The decline was 6.9%, when the majority thought there would be a small increase. In January, t...

According to the Commerce Department, construction spending rose by 1.3%, the largest increase since last April. Following December 2018's 0.8% drop, most of the spending comes from companies investing in public projects. Looking at spending on a year-over-year basis, there was a 0.3% increase.With much of the spending in public projects, investmen...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyInflation Threat Remains Tepid Economists have been accused of being more than a little like Cassandra with their repeated warnings of events that nobody chooses to believe until they come to pass. Inflation has been on the minds of analysts for several years now as the ingredients seem to have been in place for ...

Accounting scandals are becoming a real problem in the United Kingdom, and its government is looking to do something about it. The country's Financial Reporting Council's (FRC) inability to properly regulate accounting and audit firms has led to the creation of the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA), according to The Wall Street Journ...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyRetail Data Has Been RockyThe expectation was that retail sales would be flat at the start of the year. This was based on the fact that sales were off at the end of last year. The initial report from December of 2018 has shown a decline of 1.2%, but the revisions to that data showed a further decline of 1.6%. Thi...

The combination of a hold on the Chinese and U.S. tariff deals and a slower season for business led U.S. imports to the lowest numbers seen since about a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates. In January, just under two million TEUs came through U.S. ports, which is down nearly 4% from December 2018, and...

Housing starts rebounded significantly in January by nearly 19%—welcome news to builders following the 12% decline at the end of 2018. According to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development and Commerce Department, builders would begin more than 1.2 million housing units in the next year if they maintained this soaring percentage.Single-family housing...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyInternal Retraining Critics once assailed the majority of corporations for their policy of firing a group of employees and turning around and hiring new ones. The reaction by the managers was simple enough—they needed the skills of the new employees and no longer had a place for the old skills. Then, there was th...

British business owners have more than just Brexit to worry about. According to research from Santander Business, half of business owners and senior managers are vulnerable to invoice fraud, states LondonlovesBusiness. "By not checking invoice details carefully before making an online payment, small businesses are leaving themselves dangerously exp...