Construction spending in December 2018 saw a nearly 1% dip compared to the previous month, according to a recent release from Wells Fargo. With this drop, spending in construction for all of 2018 saw its slowest growth since 2011, growing by just over 4%. The release said this slowdown comes from "sluggish new homebuilding activity," which impacted...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyWill a Deal With China Mean Much in Short Term? It looks more and more likely that a deal of some kind will be struck between the U.S. and China over trade and tariffs, but the solution does not appear to be a definitive one—one that will have an impact on the global economy. If a deal is brokered, there will be ...

New single-family home sales ended 2018 with an unforeseen upswing, showing a 1.5% gain year-over-year (YOY) after November's dwindling findings. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau released its December data on March 5 due to the government shutdown earlier this year.In a report, National Association of ...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyDecline Noted in PMI The latest data from the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) shows another month of decline. There is not yet a sense of crisis as the numbers are still well into the expansion category (over 50), but the highs that were reached only a few months ago now seem a distant memory. Last month, the re...

There are several new bills floating around in the Texas Legislature that, if signed into law, will affect lien law in the state. Senate Bill 845 was referred to the Committee on Business and Commerce Friday, March 1 after its first reading. Its corresponding legislation, House Bill 1918, was introduced in the middle of February. Both relate to the...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyFourth Quarter GDP at 2.6%This was almost exactly what the majority of analysts expected. It is a return to the pace that has dominated the economy for the last 20 years; it's certainly a respectable number. The over 3% growth that was notched in the early part of 2018 was somewhat artificial as it owed much of i...

American farmers are stretching to make payments as debt levels have reached $409 billion in 2019—$24 billion higher than the prior year. According to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Reuters reported, "commodity prices, storms damaging crops and loss of key export markets" are behind the rising debt.Similar debt levels were last seen about...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyMore Sliding in the Housing Market Housing starts were down by 11.2%, the steepest drop in two years. The majority of the data on housing has been pointing in this direction; however at this stage, it is not coming as any great shock. The price of homes had started to fall in 2018, but that was mostly within the ...

​Delayed payment penalties against large firms are tightening in India, where the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) announced the possibility of imprisonment if small suppliers are paid after 45 days. According to the Knowledge & News Network (KNN), the penalties correspond with legislation to ensure smaller suppliers get paid in a timely man...

During the month of December in 2018, housing starts fell by nearly 12% compared to last month, according to The NAHB/Wells Fargo Homebuilders' Survey. Both single- and multi-family homes saw a drop during the year end.The plunge likely came from fears around the Federal Reserve continuing to hike short-term interest rates, which they said will con...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyUnemployment Is Low but So Are Wages This is not supposed to happen—at least not according to the rules of economics. The Phillips Curve states that when the rate of joblessness is low, the average wage will rise, which makes a certain amount of sense. The assumption is that business will get into a bidding war o...

Existing home sales are off to a slow start for 2019. Sales dropped for the third-straight month in January, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). January's decline of 1.2% put the seasonally adjusted annual rate at 4.94 million, the lowest since November 2015, said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "Existing home sales in Januar...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomySupport for Higher Interest Rates The consensus view at the moment holds there is no reason at all for the Fed to even consider hiking interest rates. That has been the admonition from Trump for several months. Now, the markets have joined in with all their doom and gloom assessments of growth in 2019. Lately, th...

Businesses spent significantly less on equipment in December 2018, fueling economists' beliefs that economic growth is in trouble. According to a Reuters report on Feb. 21, data from the Commerce Department shows a 0.7% decline in non-defense capital goods spending—as opposed to economists' predictions of a 0.2% gain—while the shipment of said good...

Honda announced Feb. 20 it will be moving its operations located in the U.K. to Japan at the end of its production cycle, which is due to close in 2021. Honda now joins Nissan and Dyson, who have also decided to move operations outside of the U.K.Honda did not immediately blame Brexit for its decision to move to Japan, but did say in a statement, "...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyHawks Are Not Giving Up The emerging consensus view of the Fed—it is not going to hike rates again this year. We will find out a bit more about their thinking as we peruse the Fed minutes, but the commentary from most of the members has been pretty dovish. The sense is the economy has slowed enough to create conc...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyIs Debt Really a Problem? As with most things economic, the answer to this depends to a degree on one's perspective. The fact is that the U.S. national debt is larger than it has ever been. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts it will be 93% of GDP within a decade with annual deficits well over a trilli...

U.S. housing affordability maintained its decade-long low in the fourth quarter of 2018, prompting economists to question the lack of political efforts to redirect home pricing. On Feb. 14, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo released its joint Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) that found a slight uptick in new and existi...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. EconomyWasn't Such a Happy Holiday After All It seems that retailers had a far less exciting December than they realized at first. The gangbuster consumer spending that marked November fizzled fast in December—even the usual late season rush by clueless male shoppers was not enough. The retailers had the slowest Decembe...

After protests and political opposition, Amazon decided to not open a second headquarters in New York City Feb. 14. The company said it does not have plans to begin a search for another headquarters location and will instead continue with plans to open headquarters in Arlington County, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee, according to Supply Chain D...