Nobody Knows!

  April 19, 2024 Economic forecasts have been notably inaccurate for the past couple of  years.    Virtually every economist expected a recession in the second half of last year.  But growth for the year was a solid 3.1%.  Most economists expected the inflation...

Small Business Optimism

April 10, 2024 . Small business optimism fell 0.9 point in March to 88.5 after declining 1.1 points in February.  That is the lowest level for this series since December 2012 which makes the current level even lower than the low point in the March/April 2020 recession...

Car and Truck Sales

April 4, 2024 Unit car and truck sales fell 1.3% in March to 15,489 thousand after having jumped 5.5% in February.  The supply challenges that had curtailed car sales for more than two years has ended.  The supplier delivery component of the purchasing managers’...

Consumer Sentiment

March 28, 2024 The .final estimate of consumer sentiment for March rose 2.5 points to 79.4 compared to the preliminary estimate which showed a decline of 0.5 point. Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu said,  “.Critically, consumers exhibited confidence that...