Viewpoints: 2019

Operating profits for the overall economy have been essentially flat since 2014. Yet, during the same 5-year period operating profits for the S&P 500 companies are estimated to be up by a third. Taken at face value, the profits data [...]

State labor markets were mixed in August. Five states experienced statistically significant increases in payroll employment, with 3 (Arizona, Georgia and Kansas) .4 percent or higher. California had the largest numerical gain, but the [...]

The August report from the Institute of Supply Management on the manufacturing sector showed a sharp drop in overall activity, with very few firms reporting gains in new orders and production. The manufacturer's purchasing managers' [...]

Corporate profits rebounded in Q2, rising 5.3%, reversing the near 5% decline of the prior two quarters based on the updated figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The up and down pattern in profits has become a [...]

Chinese government, are you subsidizing your manufacturers/assemblers such that they are selling us goods at less than their costs of production? Regardless of whether you are doing so, you keep selling us goods at prices less than we [...]

The negative differential between the yield on the Treasury 10-year security and the rate on federal funds suggests that, at best, the pace of U.S. economic activity will slow significantly in a few quarters ahead or, at worst, the [...]

The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's estimates of state coincident activity for July show fairly good growth over the past year, but signs of weakness—and greater dispersion in the distribution of growth-- more recently. For a [...]

President Trump has imposed higher tariffs on U.S. imports from Mainland China, in part, to narrow the bilateral trade deficit that the U.S. runs with China. The president's tariff policy appears to be working. As shown in Chart 1, [...]