Thursday, May 21, 2015

Economic Headlines = Data Down, Stocks UP!

Go figure:




4 Macro Data Misses, Stocks Surge Higher to Fresh Record Highs

"What a world, what a world!" This morning, the macro data has missed expectations -- four for four -- and yet stocks are rising sharply, to new all-time record highs! Wall St bankers have never been so dismissive of the bad economic news!


Wednesday, May 20, 2015

BofA Admits That GDP Data is Doctored

 ...er, I mean "seasonally adjusted"! And they admit that they're in collusion with the San Francisco Fed to do it! Where are the news media reports about this? Oh, I forgot! They are, after all, the Propaganda Press!

Bank of America admits that the GDP data is doctored. We're being propagandized by our government, our central bankers, and the bank economists.
"Currently, 1Q GDP is likely to come in around -1.2%, so fixing the data gets us back above zero." Fixing indeed. Do you see that? They admit that they "fix" the data to "get us back above zero"!

This morning, they all but admitted that they are in collusion with the San Francisco Fed to fabricate the economic data to make it appear positive, even when it isn't:

"Glenn Rudebusch and colleagues at the San Francisco Fed argue that residual seasonality could exist because not all the components of GDP are adjusted and the adding-up process could create further seasonality issues. They note that the risk of problems is high in 1Q, because the overall economy has a major “seasonal recession” in 1Q and, hence, big adjustments are required to normalize the data. "

They use fancy and arcane terms like "seasonal issues" and "normalize the data" to obscure the reality that in Q1 2015, the US economy was negative and went into recession. So they "seasonalize" the data to make it positive, even when it was NEGATIVE!

So the banks, the central planners, and the government are all now in collusion to mislead the American people. That's propaganda. Agitprop! And we thought that only the Soviet Union did that!

Welcome to Amerika, comrades!


More notes:

It's not good enough now that starting in August 2013, they changed the way the calculate GDP, adding in "intangibles" to artificially boost GDP. Now, they're doing "seasonal adjustments" -- repeatedly -- to make it appear higher than it really is!
"... the US itself revised its own historical GDP higher by about $500 billion when it retroactively added the benefits of intangibles, trademarks, and changed the way pensions were capitalized, economists have been stumped how to rejigger numbers which refuse to comply with central-planning's "best "intentions of boosting not only the S&P to record highs, but also the economy which somehow crashes every time there is snow in the winter." Zero Hedge this morning!
Note how they obscure the language by using arcane verbiage to mislead:
"The bottom line: adjustment problems are quite real and probably bias down 1Q GDP growth by at least 1.5%, and bias up other quarters by about 0.5%."
Do you see that? They admit that 1st Quarter GDP was DOWN 1.5%, but they fabricated an "adjustment" to artificially boost it to a positive number, partly by claiming that it was just bad weather! As if winter shouldn't appear in winter!
 

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Housing Starts Surge In Sparse "Good News" For 2015

This morning, housing starts data showed a surprisingly good surge in "starts":

At the same time, however, housing SALES have been disappointing, so it's likely that this increase in construction is a more a manifestation of builder sentiment, than consumer sentiment. It may lead to oversupply! Headlines related to housing sales were weak just in recent days, so this may end up being counterproductive!

Nevertheless, this supposed good news brought this reaction from Wall St, where everything seems twisted to be the opposite of what one would expect in recent years:
Clearly, this "good news" is seen as bad news on Wall St!

Update: This perspective this morning from Zero Hedge:
"As can be seen on the chart below, the last time single-family housing starts in the Northeast soared as much as they did in was in June 2008, just before the financial system nearly collapsed."
Here is the accompanying chart:

Monday, May 18, 2015

US Macro Data Continues to Degrade...

...even as stocks reach new record highs!