Submitted by A Dash of Insight
We have had some inquiries about our “Gong Model.”  They say that no one rings a gong at the bottom, so our marketing department thought this was a cool name.  This article showed a good description of the last time the Gong sounded.
Many traders are seeking “oversold signals” and calling […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
Unfortunately, this seems to be unfolding according to script.
The dramatic abandonment of gas guzzlers by American consumers continues, with last month’s sales of domestically manufactured light trucks (which includes the once almighty SUV category) down 28% from June 2007.

Sales of imported SUVs, which had been holding up better, plunged even more dramatically.

For the […]

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Submitted by Econbrowser
The lecture I gave at the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics Symposium in San Francisco two months ago on regional business cycles (earlier summarized here and here) is now available via video streaming (courtesy of Bruce Mizrach and the SNDE). Note you have to click through the slides yourself as the lecture […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Maybe enough for a loaf of bread?

WSJ – Robert Mugabe’s embattled regime in Zimbabwe relies on a steady supply of paper — fortified with watermarks and other antiforgery features — to print the bank notes that allow it to pay the soldiers and other loyalists who enable him to stay in power. […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Gas prices seem destined to keep rising, and many consumers feel powerless to do anything to protect themselves from what they perceive as the inevitable.

Now a new Miami-based company, MyGallons, is offering what it hopes will be a solution: the chance to pre-buy gasoline at the current price and fill up later […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
THE ECONOMIST — So just how bad are things for the Big Three? This is hardly the first time that their survival has been questioned, of course. But two aspects of the current crisis are new. Carmakers’ finance arms used to bring in cash even during cyclical downswings in the vehicle market. […]

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Submitted by A Dash of Insight
Each month we report the results from our payroll employment model.  This is not really a forecast.  We take a number of different economic indicators from the middle of the preceding month and ask what change in payroll employment is consistent with the other data.  The variables are not causally […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
According to the Business and Media Institute:

The economy consumes the nightly newscasts. Broadcast networks report that America’s finances are “like a house of cards.” ABC, CBS and NBC even hyped similarities to the Great Depression more than 40 times in the first four months of 2008.

Today’s journalists are making repeated connections […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Given the media and government-directed hostility toward “speculators,” many people will want proof that they are innocent. Well, for the scapegoat-seeking masses, there’s the following inconvenient truth: If oil were being withheld from the market by speculators, said oil would physically have to be somewhere other than on the open market where […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Why is it that mankind enjoys cell phones, computers and airplanes today but not when King Louis XIV was alive? The necessary physical resources to make cell phones, computers and airplanes have always been around, even when caveman walked the Earth. There is only one answer to why we enjoy these goodies […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM

CNN – Asian and European brands captured 54.2% of overall vehicle sales in June, edging out the 45.8% of sales that went to the U.S. brands, according to Autodata (see chart above), placing the Big Three in their weakest competitive position ever compared to their overseas rival. Until last year, there had […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
For every trader betting on higher prices, another is betting on lower prices. These trades are matched. In the stock market, all investors (buyers and sellers) can profit in a rising market, and all can lose in a falling market. In futures markets, one trader’s gain is another’s loss.

~Robert Samuelson

In the world […]

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Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading politicians either don’t understand what’s happening or don’t want to acknowledge their own complicity.

By their nature, raw materials (food, energy, minerals) sustain the broader economy. They’re not just frills. When unexpectedly high demand strains existing production, prices rise sharply as buyers scramble for […]

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