Semi-conductor figures "disappeared" from govt stats

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Apr 24 15:18:04 PDT 2002


The durable goods series is pretty damaged without semicons. They were dropped from the survey because too many firms refused to fill out the forms. The monthly stats on capital goods expenditures won't have chips in them anymore, so it's going to be harder to read the shape of the investment recovery, if there is one.

John Mage wrote:


>Released also today were new home sale stats showing a larger than
>expected drop (posted below). Now if the 2001 recession was offset
>by surprisingly strong consumer demand for homes and cars enabled by
>low mortgage rates and 0% carloans, would it not make sense that
>2001 home and car sales were in effect taken from 2002 & 2003? And
>that what we're seeing in these numbers today is the start of the
>double dip? And that any possible *upward* movement in interest
>rates would be asking for very serious trouble?

More manna for bears...

At 9:52 AM -0400 4/24/02, The Dismal Scientist wrote:


>ABC News/Money Magazine Consumer Comfort Index for United States (-5)
>
>The ABC News/Money magazine survey of consumer comfort unexpectedly
>declined by an unusually large 6 points in the latest week. The
>index now stands at -5, its lowest level since early March.
>
>* The six-point drop in the index was only the fifth drop of this
>size in the history of the index, the latest was in February 2001.
>* All components of the index dropped to levels last seen in early
>March or late February. The largest drop came in the assessment of
>the buying climate which fell eight points to -18.
>* Assessments of the state of the national economy and personal
>finances each fell six points to -18 and 20 respectively.
>* Expectations are weakest in the Northeast, where high energy
>prices and the stock market's difficulties take a particularly large
>toll.



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