Revisions of Q2 and Q3 growth will be made 6 and 9 months from now. I want to know today if we are slipping into the abyss....not after its happened.
I think inflation expectations will rise...stocks and commodities will perform well for awhile and then I expect stocks and bonds to go south....while commodities will be the high performers on their own. The FED is great at postponing the inevitable...but it's coming!
I saw an article today that said a lot of the oil / gas wells that went offline in the last year are coming back into production now. Oil is at 42 dollars a barrel and many of the new oil wells that were dug need 45-60 dollars a barrel to break even. They said it would add another 1M barrels a day to our production in the U.S. And Iran is modernizing their facilities as well. Low oil prices are going to be around for a while. I don't think we will be seeing oil at $100 barrel again any time soon.
The govt will no doubt rig the results to make it look good. They have changed the 'basket of goods' that are used to determine inflation rates on many occasions. They (Obama) hired millions of people to work for the govt and then counted their contribution to the GDP twice....once as govt employees and again as the collective total of our GDP. They have extended unemployment benefits to 125 weeks now. 125 weeks to not looking for a job. And the number underemployed is never taken into consideration as part of the unemployment figures. They'll rig it to look good at least through 2016, especially if a Republican wins. Then they'll drop the shoe to make them look bad.
You want to know today what is going to happen in the future... A recession is not an abyss, good investors and traders can make money in any market as long as they react. besides there are numerous economic indicators released monthly to make your own determination but to be honest, as a trader I do not care if we are in a recession or not, all that matters is how well you analyze what is happening in the market.
Talking of printing money reminds me of the true story of a few years ago. That nearly as many dollars are printed off in Russia as the USA. Counterfeit of course. I don't suppose things have changed in that respect. After the cops are paid off and other officials are paid off then the printers are probably on regular wages . Apparently the dollar is about the easiest to forge. Wonder why ?
We've had a recession every 7-10 years for 40 years... 2008, 2001, 1990, 1981, 1973 It's about time for one.
Pulling this from CalculatedRisk You can click the link to get a better understanding of each item. Aside from the above, you can use the St Louis Fred to look up the big 4: real income, real retail sales, industrial production and unemployment for further analysis. Be careful with industrial production, there's a bit of tomfoolery with the inner workings, ie the mining and utilities part. Check the subsector, Manufacturing, to see that all is not falling off a cliff. Bottom line, no recession.
Recession, depression, growth, etc...all relics of past economic cycles...All I need to know about this economy is represented in the actions of the Central banks...and they are in a full on panic. 8 years of ZIRP, negative rates in Europe and Japan, GDP revised down repeatedly and inflation woefully underreported.
of course, if you are trading short term then thinking long term isn't as important. my 'trading' decisions (I'm not actively trading, more investing) are heavily influenced by the possibility that 6-9 months from now everyone will be saying "we didn't see THAT coming"... I have always prided myself on seeing THAT coming (predicted 6 of the last 2 recessions)...hehe...