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Initial Claims And May Retail Sales Both Modestly Better, But Is Good News Bad News?
Moments before the retail sales number was reported, when we reminded readers that last the April retail sales was revised lower from a 100% beat to miss, we predicted that the May retail sales number (driven as usual by seasonal adjustments) would be a beat.
Look for today's retail sales seasonal adjustment beat to be revised lower shortly
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 13, 2013
Sure enough, that's just what happened, following a headline retail sales increase of 0.6% on expectations of a 0.4% print. After all the algos need their morning kick following last night's global risk off session. As for the final data, as we also noted, which will likely be revised lower, who cares - it is the upward kneejerk algo reaction which is all that matters. Also ignored will be the non-headline retail sales, such as ex-autos and ex-autos and gas, both of which printed +0.3%, or just in line as expected, the latter of which was a decline from last month's even more downward revised number, which dropped from 0.6% to 0.5%.
Breaking down the seasonally adjusted data, we find that excluding the car component, the biggest jump sequentially was among the building material dealers which rose 0.9%, food and beverage stores +0.7%, and miscellaneous stores +1.2%. On the flip side, furniture and home furnishing store sellers had the biggest drop or -0.8% which does not quite fit with the theme of redecorating one's brand new home. Although it does fit if the new home is merely a rental, sublet from America's largest landlord - BlackStone.
In other economic news, the DOL reported last week's Initial Jobless Claims, which printed at 334,000 on expectations of an unchanged, or 346,000 reading. This was the best number since May 3. In other words, a better number which implies a lower unemployment rate, which implies good news, which means tapering, which means bad news. Perhaps this is why futures initially jumped higher and are now grinding lower on the realization that with a tapering announcement imminent, good news is bad news.
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Bullish! Buy Stawks
Bearish! Buy Farmland
How ironic it is that now people on these boards who root for a crash (like me) essentially have to root for good news so that the Fed will taper* and accelerate the fail that is the Stock Market.
*They'll never stop printing though.
Good news, bad news, makes no difference. We're fucked.
We should just skip the numbers. The only thing is the "print". And that printing will continue along with the accompanying lies.
What if there were NO NEWS?
That last paragraph hurts me head, which I assume means I got it.
Risk popped it's head up and got 'Whack-A-Moled", when the algos kicked in.
Just a reminder that retail sales suffer from survivorship bias (no Circuit City, no lost sales) and initial claims will trend lower as the participation rate declines.
That's racist hate speech.
Not to mention that both recent appointees to the top job at the Census and BLS are from the obama-rubin-summers camp of friends. They have puppets at every key spot needed to help them move markets and/or sell their "recovery" as being on track. It will backfire.
"Moments before the retail sales number was reported, when we reminded readers..."?!
Now Zerohedge tell me you ain't "paying-to-peek" at the CB?!
All I know is that after 7 months of being unemployed I got a job offer this week and I'm taking it. 50K less than my last job and outside of where I have groomed a career for over 20 years and I am happy as hell. I have some CRAZY stories about this absolutely nutso job market.
Time to seriously start stacking.
@BandGap
Do tell. Fight club loves CRAZY stories.
Almost all of my interviews went through contract agencies. Almost all the employers wanted to know if I would work on contract/contract for hire. There is a fear of committment on their part. And quite a few of my screening interviews were done with people who had very little understanding of what they were screening for - I laughed a number of times at responses I got to questions about the actual job from these screeners. Clueless.
I have run whole divisions of companies in the past and hired many, many people at all levels. My job search experience is almost the exact opposite of what I did to find talent.
There were 2-5 times as many apoplicants as I have ever seen for some of the jobs I applied for. Hard to get face-time when there are 45 applicants for a manager job. Can't tell you how many potential employers were leery that I was way too over-qualified.
Crazy unemployment story? I know a guy who was a millionaire 7 years ago, owned a huge house and rental properties, never had to lift a finger really....now he's a landscaper moving rocks, dirt, and railroad ties all day and planting shrubs for $10/hr.
I always said that if I could squirrel away enough money, I'd go back to landscaping, also. I assume the motivation in this story was not to get more outdoors time, though.
I'm with you Replaceme.
The upside now is there is far less pressure.
I bought 2 new pairs of jeans and 1 pair of shorts, I think I bumped the retail sales number over the top myself.
2 pairs of shorts and a new shirt- all $15.00 at Target. My shopping for 2013 is done
I hear the sound of gnawing.... Is that Kuroda biting his nails?
http://nipponmarketblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/nikkei225-7-32/?preview...
futures now green.
its as if the nikkei 225 did not fall 6 plus percent
Yea well we'll see how far that gets them like yesterday.
Nikkei going up 600 tomorrow to close back over 13000.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-walmart-hires-temps-idUSBRE...
LOL Jason Furman, who is WMT's biggest fanboi and is now the head of Obama's Economic Adviser Council.
Too Big to Retail
Long on barbarous relics, long on lead...short the rest.
The bottom lines are not improving across America. And that is all that matters in the long run.
savings rate probably 1% now..
Everything is GRRREAT! At least on CNBC and Bloomberg this morning. Some poor schmuck went on the Tom Keene show and said interest rates are rising because of threatened central bank pullbacks. Au contraire! It is growth and demand according to the aggrieved other guests and "journalists" on the show. The tendency of folks to believe anything pro-progressive, anything pro-Obama, never ceases to amaze me. And they say kids don't learn much in school.
All is still good in the land of make believe!
and only 50,000,000 on food stamps......must be using EBT cards to buy stuff...
STAND WITH EDWARD SNOWDEN - SIGN THIS PETITION
To President Barack Obama:https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_prism_global/?bQEUUbb&v=25834
all news is good news just lie aout the numbers
with a true accounting of jobs birth death model yadda
usa lost 35 thousand jobs
put that in your lieing sack of shit reporting and the whole sale turn by the annointed to game the system