Stocks fall sharply on weaker-than-expected claims and retail data

cnbc.com ^ | February 13, 2014 | Kate Gibson

[John W]

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Thursday after economic reports had more Americans than projected filing for jobless claims last week and retail sales unexpectedly falling in January.

The Labor Department reported applications for unemployment benefits climbed by 8,000 to 339,000, higher than the 300,000 projected by economists. Separately, the Commerce Department reported retail sales fell 0.4 percent last month from December, versus expectations they would be flat.

[John W]

The dreaded Double Unexpected.

[rarestia]

I can’t remember the last time I read a genuinely true assessment of our markets. Everything is “X-er-than-expected” these days. Apparently SOMEONE needs to lose their job for ignorance and incompetence.

[Maurice Tift]

  I think we expected it, but they didn't expect it. They're always surprised when the obvious happens.

[nascarnation]

My perception is that the economy (at least here in the midwest) is still sucking bilgewater.

OTOH the youngsters I’ve sent down to the DC area have excellent jobs and are prospering.

[1010RD]

It comes from the belief in central planning that every liberal holds. They worship the economist not because they want to understand the markets, but because they believe that markets are under someone’s control or can be.

[babble-on]

Private economists working for Wall Street firms try to estimate what upcoming economic data will show. Sometimes they get it exactly right, but it’s not as easy as you might think, and when the data are higher or lower than what their estimations had predicted, the market adjusts to the new information.

That is the origin of the “expectations”. It’s not coming from the government, it’s coming from the private sector, and they are trying their hardest to get it right. The constant implication that somehow these guys are “in the tank” for Obama by predicting retail sales a few ticks too high is one of the absurdities of the conservative internet. Instapundit is particularly wooden-headed on this subject.

[grania]

Retail sales unexpectedly falling in January

UNEXPECTEDLY???? In huge swaths of the country, people cannot get out of their houses because of the weather. Budgets are getting frayed by heating costs.

It's not "unexpected". Of course there's less need for labor when people are spending mostly on necessities. Those analysts just say stuff that will keep the government printing presses going.

[BilLies]

I think it was caused by the snowstorm arriving today. Nothing to do with The Obama.
:o

[John W]

Why would they have predicted flat retail sales given what is known even to the layman as noted in post # 7?

[proxy_user]

Sorry, too late, they’ve already bounced back. The mercurial Mr Market - he goes up and down every hour!

[John W]

I figured that. This was just the best first couple paragraphs in a news story I could find on the Double Unexpected.

[edcoil]

IBM fired 12,000. Reducing 1 billion in costs.

[babble-on]

All I can say is if you think it’s easy, you are free to throw your hat in the ring. You would have made a bundle today. It’s a big country and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, it’s been an incredibly dry and mild winter. There are also sizable seasonal adjustments that go into the data to account for winter, post Christmas doldrums etc. We also had the stock market up 30% last year, and a lot of people got a lot of capital gains distributions from mutual funds, so I think there was some expectation that would add a tick or two to the January numbers.

Tomorrow we have Industrial Production. Expecting a M/M change of 0.3%, with the lowest guess at ).0% and the highest at 0.6%. If you think you know better, there’s a big financial market out there to short.

[babble-on]

All I can say is if you think it’s easy, you are free to throw your hat in the ring. You would have made a bundle today. It’s a big country and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, it’s been an incredibly dry and mild winter. There are also sizable seasonal adjustments that go into the data to account for winter, post Christmas doldrums etc. We also had the stock market up 30% last year, and a lot of people got a lot of capital gains distributions from mutual funds, so I think there was some expectation that would add a tick or two to the January numbers.

Tomorrow we have Industrial Production. Expecting a M/M change of 0.3%, with the lowest guess at ).0% and the highest at 0.6%. If you think you know better, there’s a big financial market out there to short.

[Grampa Dave]

Probably the real reason stocks are falling are discussed in the article/FR posting linked below.

Herr Obozomeister and his cabinet fascists plan to harm any business shedding employees to avoid Obozo Care, the Unaffordable Care Act.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3121901/posts

Treasury: Employers must “self-attest” OCare not behind staffing decisions–under penalty of perjury
Hot Air ^ | February 11, 2014 | Ed Morrissey
PM by 2ndDivisionVet

Er … exactly what gives Treasury the authority to demand that kind of pledge, anyway? The law only mandates that employers provide coverage for full-time employees, a status defined by working 30 or more hours a week. It doesn’t contain any authority for Treasury or anyone else to force current full-time employees to stay in that status, nor for the federal government to dictate ratios of full-time/part-time staff.

Gabriel Malor wondered the same thing:

Gabriel Malor @gabrielmalor

On what statutory authority Treasury is relying
for the certification requirement? http://goo.gl/0DC6oY

[Buckeye McFrog]

In a country that was sane and paying attention, you’d think if our Creator continued to bury our national capital under wave after wave of blizzards, the people would finally start to take the hint.

[John W]

Well, if I were wrong as often in my chosen profession as these folks are I seriously doubt my career would have been as successful as it has been. Of course, I realize their work is much more difficult than mine.

[PoloSec]

Good news, bad news none of it matters, the only thing that matters is the Fed keeps pumping.

In the economic Ivory Towers everything is good, there was a time not long ago where we the people could get a sliver of the pie, not so much anymore, your little piece of the pie is under constant attack. IMO!

[rarestia]

Don’t mistake my commentary for tin-foil hattery. I’m making the observation that they often miss the mark. You would think they’d learn and adjust their forecasting algorithms or fix what’s broken in their observational metrics.

[ChildOfThe60s]

I don’t disagree with you in principle.

I look at it this way. Try making predictions when the data you are given to work with has been adulterated for political reasons? Do these prognosticators have any inkling of how distorted job growth, unemployment and inflation are? IOW, to make an “accurate” prediction, I have to near match (largely) phony numbers spewed from the government, using as my working data, (largely) phony numbers spewed from the government.

A daunting task.