Boy! It's a good thing stocks are up today! This economic news would have told us we are in a recession otherwise!
National Activity contracted for the 3rd month in a row according
to The Chicago Fed's index. Printing -0.04 (missing expectations of
+0.05 for the 9th time of the last 11 months), CFNAI has now been below 0
(contraction) for 8 months this year. Under the surface the biggest problem is the collapse in the
sales-to-inventories index to cycle lows (contracting 7 of the last 8 months).
US Manufacturing PMI has re-collapsed to 25 month lows as manufacturing employment showed
"one of the smallest monthly gains seen over the past five years."
Dominated by an 8.7% collapse in The West, existing home sales fell 3.4% in October MoM (worse than the 2.7% drop expected) to a 5.36mm SAAR.
