Taking Stock: Macros

For the present term, it appears as though the broad market is going lower. The theme for gold is that it will be going much higher. Ben Bear-nanke was claiming that there is no threat of inflation, but that has yet to be forseen. He gave hints to the overall economy possibly improving in the second half of the year. According to Dr. Stephen Leeb, inflation will prove to be a problem in the not so distant future. The way I see it, Dr. Leeb has been right about quite a few things in the past year or so that I have been following him.

I looked at some of the macroeconomic indicators this morning, and they appear to be just barely starting to improve. One of the first things that I noticed starting to improve was the fact that there is actually demand for oil in the recent report. It was not much demand, but it was better than nothing. We will see if the crude inventories continue to decrease. Something that Dr. Leeb has been saying repeatedly is that there will be more oil shocks coming, somewhat proportionate to the previous oil shock of last year. I am interested in seeing if that happens.

A few other macros that I noted:
-Personal Income increased for the prior two months by 0.4%
-Personal Spending increased by 0.6%, which is up from -1.0%
-Personal Consumption & Expenditures increased by 0.1%

I don't watch the unemployment rate or jobless claims quite so much because it is a lagging indicator. The consensus for the unemployment rate is that it will continue to climb.

The report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis for the preliminary GDP was a contraction of 6.9%, which is a huge contraction. I recall seeing a report from, if I remember correctly, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) that there would be a small contraction in 3Q08, large contraction in 4Q08, and anoher small contraction in 1Q09. So far, the 3Q08 & 4Q08 have proven to be true.

To me, it appears as though the overall economy could quite possibly be starting to recover, although it is going virtually unnoticed.