{"id":193831,"date":"2008-11-13T19:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-14T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/11\/13\/economics-update-343\/"},"modified":"2008-11-13T19:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-14T00:44:00","slug":"economics-update-343","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/11\/13\/economics-update-343\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Weekly initial unemployment claims are <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/11\/13\/news\/economy\/jobless_claims\/index.htm\">at 516,000<\/a>, up from 484,000, well above the estimate of 479,000, and the highest number since 2 weeks after the 911 attacks.<\/p>\n<p>With the caveat that weekly unemployment figures have a lot of noise, I would like to segue to a much noisier indicator, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ritholtz.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/dow-slips-below-8000\/\">Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>, when fell below 8,000, though it rallied and ended up for the day.<\/p>\n<p>Yean, I know, stock gyrations are really <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">completely<\/span> noise, but crossing 8K is a big deal for the markets, even if the Dow ended the day up 500+ points.<\/p>\n<p>A better indicator of what is going on in the world is the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/27692075\">Germany is now officially in a recession<\/a>, having experience two consecutive quarters of negative growth.<\/p>\n<p>Calculated Risk&#8217;s regular post of <a href=\"http:\/\/calculatedrisk.blogspot.com\/2008\/11\/credit-crisis-indicators-libor-rises.html\">credit crisis indicators<\/a>, a very useful collection of interest rates and interest rate spreads really did not do much today.<\/p>\n<p>That being days, CR does have a nice chart of <a href=\"http:\/\/calculatedrisk.blogspot.com\/2008\/11\/record-spreads-between-30-year.html\">spreads between 30 Year corporate bonds and treasuries<\/a>, and it is not pretty: <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img219.imageshack.us\/img219\/3091\/spreadsnov20082408862ye1.jpg\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Of course if you want to be scared, the fact that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/27694372\">foreclosures are up 25% year over year<\/a>, and that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/\/id\/27697285\">Ranieri&#8217;s Franklin Bank has filed chapter 7<\/a> (liquidation).<\/p>\n<p>They are the 3rd largest lender to fail this year.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of failures, there is already General Motors, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/topNews\/idUSTRE4AC79Y20081113?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=topNews\">Goldman Sachs has suspended its rating of the auto maker<\/a>, which is a polite way of saying, &#8220;Absent a bailout, it&#8217;s done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/businessNews\/idUSTRE49B3Y620081113?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=businessNews\">oil rose at the end of the day<\/a>, along with the rising Dow, which indicates that oil traders are complete morons who trade on chicken entrails and other spooky omens.<\/p>\n<p>The dollar <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2008\/11\/13\/markets\/dollar\/index.htm\">was mixed today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weekly initial unemployment claims are at 516,000, up from 484,000, well above the estimate of 479,000, and the highest number since 2 weeks after the 911 attacks. With the caveat that weekly unemployment figures have a lot of noise, I would like to segue to a much noisier indicator, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, when &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,975,1004,1088,1089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-employment","category-finance","category-real-estate","category-recession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193831"}],"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=193831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}