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April 2019 Chicago Fed National Activity Index

At last Tuesday's Pie Party much of the discussion centered around the U.

The curvature of U.S. bond yields has attracted a lot of press of late.  Atlas has written about it in some of our blogs, and the significance of a possible inversion has frequently been a subject of discussion at our Pie Parties.  Whatever current shape the curve takes or your choice of maturity, the returns are still positive.  That's to be expected, right? 

More data regarding America’s economic output were collected and tallied up by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, providing a fuller look at our nation’s gross domestic product.  Unfortunately, the fuller picture suggests additional slowing took place in the final quarter of last year than first thought.  On a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, output grew 2.2 percent, r

"History never repeats itself, but the kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends."  Mark Twain in the introduction to The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

Industrial Production staged a minor comeback in February 2019 after a stumble at the start of the year.  America’s output of all physically made good increased 0.1 percent in the period.  This modest uptick follows the upwardly revised decline of 0.4 percent (originally minus 0.6 percent).

Orders for wares expected to last longer than three years improved for a third consecutive month in January according to the Census Bureau.  Their measure of Durable Goods Orders rose $900 million or 0.4 percent.  However, even after three months of increases, this indicator is not yet back to the September 2018 level because the 4.3 percent drop in October’s reading has yet to

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