Tag Archive: demand

It’s Inventory PLUS Demand

2022-06-30

It’s not just the flood of never-ending inventory. That’s a huge and growing problem, sure, as the chickens of last year’s short-termism overordering finally come home to their retailer roost. Being stuck with too many goods isn’t necessarily fatal to the global and domestic manufacturing sectors.

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Another Round of Transitory: US Retail Sales & (revised) IP

2021-06-16

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2021-06-16

Same stuff, different month. We can basically reprint both what was described yesterday about supply curves not keeping up with exaggerated demand as well as the past two months of commentary on Retail Sales plus Industrial Production each for the US. Quite on the nose, US demand for goods, anyway, is eroding if still artificially very high.

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So Much Bond Bull

2020-05-21

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-05-21

Federal Reserve: H.10 Foreign Exchange Rates, 2017-2020

Count me among the bond vigilantes. On the issue of supply I yield (pun intended) to no one. The US government is the brokest entity humanity has ever conceived – and that was before March 2020. There will be a time, if nothing is done, where this will matter a great deal.That time isn’t today nor is it tomorrow or anytime soon because it’s the demand side which is so confusing and misdirected.

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Commodities And The Future Of China’s Stall

2019-06-13

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-06-13

Commodity prices continued to fall last month. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet catalog, non-energy commodity prices accelerated to the downside. Falling 9.4% on average in May 2019 when compared to average prices in May 2018, it was the largest decline since the depths of Euro$ #3 in February 2016.

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China Exports and Industrial Production: Revisiting Once More The True Worst Case

2017-12-16

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-12-16

As weird as it may seem at first, the primary economic problem right now is that the global economy looks like it is growing again. There is no doubt that it continues on an upturn, but the mere fact that whatever economic statistic has a positive sign in front of it ends up being classified as some variant of strong. That’s how this works in mainstream analysis, this absence of any sort of gradation where if it’s negative it’s bad (though in 2015...

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Reduced Trade Terms Salute The Flattened Curve

2017-12-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-12-10

The Census Bureau reported earlier today that US imports of foreign goods jumped 9.9% year-over-year in October. That is the second largest increase since February 2012, just less than the 12% import growth recorded for January earlier this year.

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Synchronized Global Not Quite Growth

2017-11-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-11-10

Going back to 2014, it was common for whenever whatever economic data point disappointed that whomever optimistic economist or policymaker would overrule it by pointing to “global growth.” It was the equivalent of shutting down an uncomfortable debate with ad hominem attacks. You can’t falsify “global growth” because you can’t really define what it is.

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Harvey’s Muted (Price) Impact On Oil

2017-09-19

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-09-19

US Crude Oil Stocks, Nov 2016 - Sep 2017

The impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf energy region is becoming clear. There have been no surprises to date, even though the storm did considerable damage and shuttered or disrupted significant capacity. Most of that related to gasoline, which Americans have been feeling in pump prices.

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All About Inventory

2017-06-14

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-06-14

Crude Oil Stocks, January 2009 - June 2017

Andy Hall has been called the God of Oil. As chief of Astenbeck Capital, he has proven at times that even gods can be mortal. In the “rising dollar” period, for example, after making money on the way down Mr. Hall went bullish.

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Lackluster Trade

2017-05-14

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-05-14

US imports rose 9% year-over-year (NSA) in March 2017, after being flat in February and up 12% in January. For the quarter overall, imports rose 7.3%, a rate that is slightly more than the 2013-14 comparison. The difference, however, is simply the price of oil.

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February US Trade Disappoints

2017-04-06

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-04-06

The oversized base effects of oil prices could not in February 2017 push up overall US imports. The United States purchased, according to the Census Bureau, 71% more crude oil from global markets this February than in February 2016. In raw dollar terms, it was an increase of $7.3 billion year-over-year. Total imports, however, only gained $8.4 billion, meaning that nearly all the improvement was due to nothing more than the price of global oil.

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Why Aren’t Oil Prices $50 Ahead?

2017-02-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-02-18

Oil Prices Oil Inflation Economy Circular

Right now there are two conventional propositions behind the “reflation” trade, and in many ways both are highly related if not fully intertwined. The first is that interest rates have nowhere to go but up. The Fed is raising rates again and seems more confident in doing more this year than it wanted to last year. With nominal rates already rising in the last half of 2016, and with more (surveyed) optimism than even 2014, it may at times seem the...

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The Six Major Fundamental Factors that Determine Gold and Silver Prices

Gold and silver are the most complicated assets to price. Stocks, currencies, commodities mostly depend on their fundamental data, supply and demand. Gold and silver, however, are priced indirectly.

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