January 2018

More growth is the message from the latest release of the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI).  In fact, the December 2017 iteration suggests an acceleration of economic output as the LEI increased to 0.6 percent from the upwardly revised tally of 0.5 percent (originally 0.4 percent).  The recent strength in this indicator bodes well for the first half of 2018.

Last year will go down as record setting.  The number of global billionaires increased by more than ever before.  According to a study by Oxfam there were 2043 billionaires in the world at year’s end 2017, with a new one now being minted every two days.  When juxtaposed against some of the poorest people on earth, this growth rate seems to be a bit much; Oxfam estimates bil

America’s output of physically made goods improved 0.9 percent in December 2017 according to the Industrial Production figures from the Federal Reserve.  This strong uptick followed the downwardly revised count of 0.1 percent in November (originally up 0.2 percent).  Versus twelve months earlier, this indicator is 3.6 percent higher.

Prices paid by Americans were higher in December 2017 according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  However, the rates of change were mixed.  For instance, the month-over-month Consumer Price Index (CPI) decelerated to just 0.1 percent after hitting 0.4 percent a month earlier, and the year-over-year tally slowed to 2.1 percent from 2.2 percent.  However, core-CPI (whic

Prices paid by wholesalers and producers fell during December according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Their Producer Price Index (PPI) declined 0.1 percent in the period.  Versus a year earlier, this measure decelerated to 2.6 percent from 3.1 percent in November.  Core-PPI, which removes food and energy because of their volatility, fell 0.1 percent to end the year and slow