US Economy: On A Knife’s Edge
by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
ZeroHedge.com
01/27/2016
Gross Output Remains Under Pressure
We should mention right from the outset that recent data releases – weak as most of them were – are still not confirming an imminent recession with certainty. The situation remains a bit fuzzy: we see a lot of weakness in important data, and considering the overall picture – which includes what is happening globally – we can infer that the likelihood of a significant economic downturn this year is extremely high, but it’s not inevitable. While it is still possible that a recession can be dodged this year, that seems a low probability outcome by now.
Last week the government has updated the gross output (GO) per industry data, which means we now have the picture until the end of Q3 2015. In terms of GDP, Q3 wasn’t much to write home about either (2% real), and we can see from GO that there has been weakness in quite a few business areas. The parts of the economy that are responsible for the bulk of wealth creation didn’t really do all too well. Our suspicion that the trends observed in the Q2 gross output data would continue has been confirmed – and in all likelihood, Q4 will once again show weakness. Below we compare the y/y change rates of selected gross output data to those of new orders for capital goods and industrial production.
The Rest…HERE
