Semi sales up 7.6% year on year (via Briefing.com). Lots of market talk about LCD sales softening as well.
Semiconductor chip sales during July increased 7.6% from last year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. In turn, total July sales were $22.2 billion. Sales were also up from the prior month when they totaled [...]
Briefing is arguing that exports are growing quickly enough (because of the weak dollar) to offset any housing weakness, but are not getting the respect that they deserve. Contributions to GDP growth over past three quarters:
Q4
Q3
Q2
Housing
-1.25
-1.08
-0.62
Net Exports
0.90
1.38
1.32
Exports will remain strong. Also, the backlog of unfilled manufacturing orders is up over 4% the past three months [...]
The New York Times surveys the worsening housing situation with a great many anecdotes and a few facts:
Not since the Depression has a larger share of Americans owed more on their homes than they are worth. With the collapse of the housing boom, nearly 8.8 million homeowners, or 10.3 percent of the total, are underwater… [...]
In a policy statement interesting for both novelty and content, Microsoft announced a set of broad-reaching changes to its technology and business practices to “increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice for developers, partners, customers and competitors”. Specifically, Microsoft is implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across [...]
Unusual. This is the most negative I’ve ever seen these guys.
There isn’t much solace that can be provided. Short-term, the stock market outlook is not good. Longer-term, we are absolutely standing by our full year forecast of a 2% to 4% gain in the S&P 500 index. That too is uninspiring from a historical perspective, [...]
Fourth quarter operating earnings for the S&P 500 in aggregate are expected to decline 8.5% from the fourth quarter of last year. This forecast is down from a projected decline of 3.8% just one month ago. Most of the damage is financials – down 61.4% on a 17.2% weight. Materials is also expected to be [...]
Briefing.com still sees no evidence to support a forecast of a recession.
There is still no evidence of recession in the hard data, and the risks from the housing market and credit markets have yet to provide any reason to forecast one…
In Briefing.com: The Big Picture the case is made for no recession; because the consumer will not stop spending; because property prices have already fallen and didn’t impact consumer spending much and real income will continue to rise.I think the drop in property is far from over (ref. resets driving foreclosures driving prices) and has [...]
Dick Green at Briefing is having none of this pessimism about credit:
The economy will muddle through the next couple of quarters with modest growth, and earnings growth will be decent in 2008 once financials get past the current problems. The market may well benefit from a classic year-end rally, and should post moderate gains over [...]
Q2 GDP rebounded to 3.8% after the weak 0.6% Q1 pace – a modest 2.2% average. Q3 GDP is expected at 3.3% as the second half growth is expected to top the first half.
The tight labor market is the strongest factor of the economy but is showing decided softening.
Core inflation risks [...]