{"id":190925,"date":"2009-10-14T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-14T23:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/10\/14\/economics-update-143\/"},"modified":"2009-10-14T18:09:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-14T23:09:00","slug":"economics-update-143","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/10\/14\/economics-update-143\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px 10px; width: 410px; float: right; text-align: center;\">Click for full size<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img26.imageshack.us\/img26\/9153\/retailsepreal6337659.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img26.imageshack.us\/img26\/9153\/retailsepreal6337659.jpg\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"400\" \/> <\/a><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Retail Sales, Courtesy <a style=\"font-style: italic;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/10\/retail-sales-decrease-in-september.html\">Calculated Risk<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img42.imageshack.us\/img42\/7240\/dow.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img42.imageshack.us\/img42\/7240\/dow.gif\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"400\" \/><\/a><br \/>DJIA Since Late 1998<\/span><\/div>\n<p>As much as I think that the crossing of arbitrary numbers is bullsh#@, and I think that covering the daily swings of the market is bullsh#@, and I think that the Dow Jones is perhaps an even bigger load of bullsh#@, the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB125551589964584577.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us\">the DJIA topped 10,000 today is the obvious lede in today&#8217;s economics news<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Dow closed at 10015.86, the highest number in over a year.<\/p>\n<p>It should also be noted this makes the return on the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the past 10 years roughly <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">0%<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>I still think that this is a dead cat bounce, fueled largely by the Federal Reserve printing money and laundering it into the stock market through the banks.<\/p>\n<p>It appears that the Federal Reserve is similarly dubious about the meaning of the recent rally, as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2009\/10\/fomc-minutes-considerable-uncertainty.html\">newly released FOMC Minutes make notes about &#8220;Considerable Uncertainty&#8221; about the strength of the recovery<\/a>, once the stimulus package wraps up.<\/p>\n<p>When one looks at things like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601068&amp;sid=aqidZkv3Km4g\">falling retail sales in September<\/a> with the expiration of &#8220;cash for clunkers&#8221;, (though the number did beat expectations) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/33308623\">US business inventories falling in August<\/a>, there is little sign that all this money doing anything but creating an equities bubble.<\/p>\n<p>In real estate, we are seeing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/33305726\">mortgage applications  fall again<\/a> as rates for the 30 year fixed mortgage head back above 5%.<\/p>\n<p>The energy and currency markets are ecstatic about breaking the 10K barrier, which <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/33302547\">drove oil above $75\/bbl for the first time in almost exactly a year<\/a>, and because people are optimistic, and hence no longer looking for a safe haven, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aU6JACXjjBdI\">Dollar weakened<\/a> to $1.4924:\u20ac1.0000, the lowest number in 14 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click for full size Retail Sales, Courtesy Calculated Risk DJIA Since Late 1998 As much as I think that the crossing of arbitrary numbers is bullsh#@, and I think that covering the daily swings of the market is bullsh#@, and I think that the Dow Jones is perhaps an even bigger load of bullsh#@, the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,973,1135,1004,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-economy","category-energy","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}