The Economy Guy

Today was a sideways day in all markets.  In addition Gold ended at a NEW HIGH, and Oil had an inter-day NEW HIGH.  You might get tired of me saying NEW HIGH in the days to come.  As far as the “sideways” comment is concerned, the numbers speak for themselves at the bottom of this report.

Today’s News.

Manufactured goods went up 1.5% in November.  BUT, it was driven by Oil going up.  Durable Goods went down 0.1% in November following October’s huge fall of 3%.  New people filing for unemployment benefits went down last week, BUT it was probably the Christmas effect of temporary workers needed for all those sales.  The number of people filing for unemployment was 336,000, and this is a VERY BIG number in the statistical history of things.

What does all this mean??  It means that businesses are being very cautious in their expansion plans.  They are postponing some big expenditures, probably waiting to see what the economy is going to do.  (Wouldn’t you??)  My advice is to ignore the numbers just quoted as they don’t mean that much anyway.

Consumer loan late payments are going up, but credit card delinquencies went down slightly.  This is a “lagging” report, so doesn’t say what’s happening today, or in the future.  But, it is one spot to watch in the future.

Dinner Conversations

Citibank has limited the amount you can withdraw from one of their ATMs in New York City.  Their explanation is that there is too much fraud, so they are limiting the amount that someone can steal.  A conspiracy theorist would put forward the possibility that Citibank is running out of money, and is putting in place the means to control a run on the bank.

The average cost of a condo in New York City is $1.43M.  This is somewhere between 18% and 34% increase in value over the past quarter.  New York City is RED HOT.  Guess that makes you wonder where all those houses are that are losing so much money across the USA.

Here are today’s closing numbers.
Dow Jones 30 Industrials - 13,057 (Up 13 points)
10 Year Treasury Bond - 3.90% (same)
Euro - $1.4748
Gold $869 (Up $9) - A NEW HIGH
Oil $99.18 (Down $0.44) - It hit $100.05 during the day, A NEW HIGH
Gasoline $2.54 (Down $0.03)