Retail Sales

Consumers Consuming, Producers Producing & Treasury Borrowing

Jun 18, 2024 2 min read paid

May's retail sales, including food services, rose just 0.1% m/m, weaker than expected (chart). That's in current dollars. Adjusted for inflation, they were not as weak. CPI goods fell 0.1% m/m during May. So real retail sales, less food services, rose 0.3%. Much of the recent weakness in retail sales has been in housing-related merchandise since housing sales remain weak. Real

Ed Yardeni
YRI Team

The Economic Week Ahead: June 17-21

Jun 16, 2024 3 min read paid

The economic week ahead will include lots of economic indicators, which on balance should show that the pace of economic activity improved during May. June's regional business surveys for the New York and Philly Fed districts will also be released. The BIG number should be initial unemployment claims. Here's our take: (1) Unemployment claims. Jobless claims (Thu) jumped over the past three weeks through the week

Ed Yardeni
YRI Team

Housing Still In Rolling Recession

May 30, 2024 2 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

Inflation's Puzzle Pieces Painting Bullish Picture

May 15, 2024 2 min read paid

The S&P 500 rose to a new record high of 5308.15 following today's economic numbers. It could easily reach our yearend target of 5400 well ahead of schedule! For now, we are sticking with this target, as well as 6000 for 2025 and 6500 for 2026. That's consistent with our Roaring 2020s scenario (60% subjective probability). If the market continues its near-vertical ascent,

Ed Yardeni
YRI Team

The Week Ahead: May 13 - 17

May 12, 2024 3 min read

The week ahead is jampacked with economic indicator releases. The big ones are for inflation, retail sales, and production. They may be somewhat stagflationary on balance, showing inflation remains too high while economic growth is slowing. Nevertheless, we still expect to see inflation moderate with solid economic growth over the rest of this year. Here are a few observations on this week's key indicators: (1) CPI. The Cleveland

Ed Yardeni
YRI Team

No Landing

Apr 15, 2024 2 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

The Pause That Refreshes Spooks Investors

Mar 14, 2024 2 min read paid

The vertical momentum rally that started on October 27, 2023 seems to be losing some of its momentum. Maybe. That's OK with us. We would rather see our 5400 S&P 500 target achieved by yearend, then by mid-year. But as the Rolling Stones observed, "You can't always get what you want." Slowing the pace of the advance this week have been hotter

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: March 11-15

Mar 9, 2024 2 min read paid

The coming week starts with a couple of key inflation indicators. Both were probably boosted by rising gasoline prices. The retail pump price is up 9.1% since the last week of January. This bounce might have boosted February's reading on the year-ahead expected inflation rate in the FRBNY consumer expectations survey (Mon). It did so, though only slightly, in a similar series from February's SCR

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: February 12-16

Feb 11, 2024 2 min read

Powell & Co. would like to see more evidence that inflation is falling toward their 2.0% target. They should get more of it this week. January's headline and core CPI inflation rates (Tue) should be 0.2% and 0.3% m/m, and 3.0% and 3.8% y/y, according to the Cleveland Fed's Inflation Nowcasting model. We will be focusing on these inflation

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: January 16-19

Jan 15, 2024 2 min read paid

Last week had plenty of indicators that allowed us to assess the latest readings on US inflation: It is continuing to moderate. This week has plenty of reports that will allow us to assess the strength of the economy: They are likely to show some mixed readings for the goods sector. Most important will be December's retail sales (Wed). We know that aggregate hours worked fell 0.2%

Ed Yardeni

A Whiff Of Deflation

Nov 16, 2023 2 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: November 13 - 17

Nov 11, 2023 2 min read paid

The third week of the month tends to be action packed with key economic indicators. This week's batch should confirm that inflation remains on a moderating trend and that the economy continues to grow albeit at a slower pace than during Q3. Unfortunately, on Monday, we will be reminded that this Goldilocks scenario has at least one big flaw, i.e., the widening federal deficit. In addition, we

Ed Yardeni

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