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... In Which We Find Joe LaVorgna Looking For "Some Impressive Weather-Related Snapback"
Word count of the word "weather" in Joe LaVorgna's latest note explaining away today's third consecutive miss in retail sales and initial claims: 8. The humor, however, is this punchline: "Eventually, though, we should see some impressive weather-related snapback in economic activity." Wait, so the weather will deposit a few thousand dollars in all tapped-out US consumers' bank accounts? You do learn something every day.
From DB's Joe LaVorgna
Weather likely weighed on retail sales and jobless claims
January retail sales fell -0.4% after December and November sales were revised down three-tenths and one-tenth to -0.1% and +0.3%, respectively. There was broad-based weakness in the details, with motor vehicles (-2.1%) down the most, followed by department stores (-1.5%) and sporting goods sales (-1.4%). Conceivably, inclement weather hurt these highly discretionary categories. In fact, the only five subcomponents that rose in January, and four of these categories likely reflect weather-related spending, were building materials, food & beverage, grocery stores and gasoline. Spending on electronics was up a slight +0.4%, but this follows a massive -4.4% decline in December. Retail control, which excludes food services, autos, building materials and gasoline and which is a direct input into GDP, was down -0.3% in January after rising just +0.3% in December. Adding to the softness of the report was the fact that retail control was revised down in December (+0.3% versus an initially reported +0.7%) as well as November (-0.1% versus a previously reported +0.2%). Given the unusually frigid temperatures seen across much of the country over the past two months, electricity and natural gas usage likely soared. In turn, the bump in utilities spending could help offset some of the weather-related weakness in retail spending with respect to Q1 real GDP.
Initial jobless claims for the week of February 8 increased +9k to 339k which had the effect of bumping up the four-week moving average +4k to 337k. In other details of the report, continuing claims fell -18k to 2953k and this caused the four-week moving average to decline -17k to 2970k. The insured rate of unemployment remained at 2.3%. It is important to keep in mind that adverse weather and seasonal factors can add to the volatility in the claims data around this time of the year. Hence, we are not overly concerned with this morning’s moderate rise in the headline and would instead focus more on the four-week average. Since the four-week moving average on initial jobless claims first fell below 340k last August, nonfarm payroll growth has averaged +177k per month which is close to its underlying trend. This gives us modest confidence that the labor market remains stable despite the recent weakness in the December and January reports which were likely impacted by adverse weather. Next week’s data correspond to the survey period for February payrolls and given the impact of winter storm Pax on the eastern seaboard, we could be setting up for another weather-dampened report. Eventually, though, we should see some impressive weather-related snapback in economic activity.
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Snapback? Say it ain't so Joe!
The skittle-shitting unicorns are scheduled to deliver some "snapback" any day now. Just wait......
So hurricanes are 'good' weather (stocking up on supplies, gassing the car, repairing damage, etc) but blizzards are 'bad' weather (stocking up on supplies, gassing the car, repairing damage, paying gas/electric bills)?
think of all the consumer spending that will be generated by not having to spend money on commuting and other work expenses because you don't have a job and have no chance to find one ever again!
Skittle shitters slip slide snapping sales surge,
Snapback...usually associated with a breaking rubber band....yup, sounds about right. Broken.
Endlessly entertaining watching liars and dissemblers defend the lies.
"Wait, so the weather will deposit a few thousand dollars in all tapped-out US consumers' bank accounts?"
See, that's the thing, These dumbasses don't understand just how broke Joe Sixpack really is.
The Tooth Fairy ain't got nuttin' on the Weather Fairy....
Every time I hear some pundit or government shill complain about weather messing with the country's financial performance I can't help but laugh. If you guys would stop messing around with your weather modification programs we might just get this country back on its feet.
/sarc
But then they need a new excuse..
It's snowing dollars !!!!
Shameless shill sells sad sentiment snafu snapback story stuffing stocks sucking socks.
Sleeting snow storm slices sales
Let's just ignore the fact that heating bills have more than doubled for 70% of the country when compared to last winter.
Cue Chuck Schumer presser re: evil nat gas speculators, it's gotta be coming soon ...
Joe, you live Somewhere Over The Rainbow, no doubt...
Weather - wonder if the weather caused this??? Monetary base "only" added $44 B (total) for 2 months of Nov ($31 B) / Dec ($13 B) after consistently adding $100 B mo for '13. Stawks start tanking on slowdown in hyper-monetization...Correlation???
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&s[1][id]=AMBNS&s[1][range]=1yr
Since the taper announcement of $10 B which was applied in Jan and $20 B applied in Feb isn't even visible yet in the data set...what oh what caused this halt in the monetary base and wonder what Jan and Feb will look like? And since the change commodities (energy, metals, softs) all taking off...as if this is a head fake for Janet to show how critical moar and moar QE is to the "growth" of the US economy. Janet gonna fix it all...make all the pain go of stopping hyper-monetization go away. Janet gonna make it rain.
Weather-related CNBC talking head BS makes no sense. Howard Schultz said malls were dead well before "weather-related" bad sales. Why would a stock like OPEN be up if people can't get out to restaurants? Or YELP, why need reviews of restaurants and businesses if you can't get to them?? And everyone knows the 4-wheel drive TSLA sells like hotcakes when the weather is bad.
Total BS, kids.
No the 1% needs good info and deals on their trip to Boca, West Palm etc. hence the rally in TRIP, YELP, PCLN, EXPE, etc. Even Sheryl Sandberg was kvetching about using her FF miles a few weeks ago and she's worth a billion yellen bux, give or take
Joey Baloney is such an asshole.
Stick Joey boy through a woodchipper feet first. Then sell it on PPV.
If you tried head first, that curly mop would gum up the works.
weather or whether thats the qestion.
So we can only have 'good economy' now if the weather is pleasant? I agree with the above comments.....feed Joey and all the rest of these assclowns into a woodchipper.
Stunning that Joe still has a job - what a waste of money from Deutche bank to pay him - he is wrong 90% of the time
and DB pays him $1,000,000 to print his BULLSHIT
So seriously....I live in the Northeast where we've had more than our share of weather headaches. But am hard pressed to think of a single thing I am doing differently becasue of cold or snow. Sure - maybe an occasional redbox at home versus dinner out and a movie but could that, multiplied by the many people similarly affected, drive a statstically significant difference in the reported data?
I think not!
What truly blows my mind I'd that FB has a market cap of 170 billion dollars!! WTF hasn't it been proven time and time again that all these "LIKES" are pure bullshit and spending $$ advertising is as good as throwing your $$ away? Oh, I get it. Its the weather, and everyone is on FB because they can't leave their house, creating huge revenue for a company that creates nothing at all.
When you add up mkt caps of all these social media, advertising "driven" web stocks it is approaching 1 Trillion Yellen bux, hat tip to Francis Sawyer
Apparently everyone is booking trips to warmer spots, PCLN $1275 wtf??... reminds me of 1999/2000