Blog entries tagged economy

Why Houston is Leading the Recovery

Nick Will — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:33:41 +0100

This chart tells the story of what I'm seeing through other economic indicators being released now and in recent weeks. This is a chart of the past 10 years of Producer Price Indices, the general economic cost index for companies that produce things. If a steel cookware company wants to sell more cookware, it cares a lot for example about the cost of steel. Same for a fast food compRead More...

Sen to Punch Financial Industry in Speech Today

Nick Will — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:49:41 +0100

This is welcome news, courtesy of MIT Professor Simon Johnson, a notice that Sen. Ted Kaufman (Delaware) is set to lay down a few tenets that underscore the nation's financial situation. And he's spot on.

According to Kaufman's website, he will say: 1. Excessive deregulation allowed big finance to get out of control from the 1980s -- but particularly during and after the 1990s. This led directly to the economic catastrophe in 2007-08. 2. We need to modernize Read More...

First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit to 04-2010 This Week?

Nick Will — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:27:23 +0100

The Seattle Post PI.com is reporting that after clearing a Senate hurdle this week that the New Home Buyer Tax Credit of $8,000 is widely expected to pass congress this week to extend the credit into the spring season of 2010, which would be most welcome across the country. The program essentially creates a refundable $8,000 tax credit for qualified first-time home buyer tax credits (some limitations apply and "first" doesn't always mean "first"). This is very welcome news.

New vs Resale Stats: More of My Case

Nick Will — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:18:04 +0100

The inestimable Lucia Mutikani reports for Reuters that existing home sales rose to a 2-year high in September. These numbers are more meaningful than how, in two posts ago as I mentioned, new home builders have just been messing all over themselves. From Mutikani's article:
The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes jumped 9.4 percent in September to an annual rate of 5.57 million units, the highest level since July 2007. Financial markets had expected sales to rise to aRead More...

New Home Sales Stats: Some Truth to Power

Nick Will — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:41:56 +0100

Okay so new home sales numbers weren't reported to be up last week. So? First of all, the housing market is local in nature. If all politics is local as Tip O'Neill said, then real estate and housing is darn near skin-tight.

Here's what Deutsche Bank said in the linked article above: "Overall, we think today's weak number supports our contention that based on waning government stimulus the housing recovery could end up being W-shaped..." What blather.

&nbsRead More...

The Recession Has Ended: And So?

Nick Will — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:04:42 +0100

So says GDP stats released this morning, even beating market expectation for value of overall U.S. national economic production in the 3rd quarter, July-September. From Lucia Mutikani of Reuters:
The Commerce Department, in its first estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product on Thursday, said the economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2007...

What can we expect of this? Well we can expect some glad tidings and cheer, and that is most wRead More...

Intel CEO: Higher Corp PC Sales in 2010

Nick Will — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:30:38 +0100

Reuters and their James Pethokoukis reports this morning from New Delhi that the CEO of gigantic PC chip maker Intel is forecasting significantly improved growth in corporate PC spending in 2010, which would be great news for the local north Houston tech market, including huge local PC and tech employer HP.

From the article:

"There is a very good chance corporate spending on PCs will improve significantly in 2010," Otellini told reporters at a news conference in the IndRead More...

Austin: Construction Contracts Down 50%

Nick Will — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:05:44 +0100

Austin is an odd bird in the Texas aviary of real estate, both commercial and residential. The Austin Business Journal is reporting that commercial and residential contracts combined are down almost 50% through August of this year over last year, which itself was not a stellar year.

That blowing sound you hear could be the air coming out of the Austin real estate market. I'm a bull when it comes to Houston area real estate, a serious bull, but with Austin... not so much. AusRead More...

Buyers Gaining Interest: Web Stats

Nick Will — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:58:01 +0100

The website alexa.com tracks various statistics regarding web traffic across the Internet worldwide. Its methods are sometimes questioned - full disclosure - they use a large sample of people who download their "toolbar" is how I understand they get their sample. Nonetheless it's a commonly referenced source for Internet traffic statistics.

So today I pulled the recent traffic for HAR.com, the Houston Association of Realtors's public version of the Multiple Listing Service fRead More...

Top Luxury Builder Debuting in The Woodlands

Nick Will — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:04:09 +0100

If you think I've been overly optimistic, please note this. It needs no commentary. From The Houston Chronicle Tuesday:
Toll Brothers, a publicly traded home building company, has earned the industry's top three awards, including America's Best Builder from the National Association of Home Builders, the National Housing Quality Award and Builder of the Year.

It plans to offer its luxury homes in the high $400,000 to $500,000 price range in Tupelo Woods in Creekside Park and PlayerRead More...

Housing Starts at 9 Month High: Things Turning?

Nick Will — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:57:12 +0100

From Reuters on Friday:

The Commerce Department said on Thursday housing starts rose 1.5 percent from July to an annual rate of 598,000 units, a touch below market forecasts for 600,000 units.
In another report, the Labor Department said the number of workers filing new claims for jobless benefits fell by 12,000 last week to 545,000, the lowest level since early July, defying market expectations for a rise to 555,000.

This is very encouraging. Both housing starts are at a 9-month hRead More...

Will Congress Extend the $8,000 Home Buyer Credit?

Nick Will — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:35:12 +0100

The Associated Press is reporting that the administration and congress are undecided about whether to extend the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, which is set to expire November 30 of this year. The credit allows up to an $8,000 refundable tax credit on the purchase of a first-time home. It's been a very effective policy for the past year, key to improving economic conditions in the U.S.

From the article:

The credit is helping stabilize the housing market, but there arRead More...

Liberal Handwringing Gets It Wrong

Nick Will — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:18:49 +0100

Leftward liberals and rightward conservatives are both missing the mark when it comes to how they're framing economic issues. While some partisans of any stripe may have a roughly correct conclusion here and there, the reasoning involved is rarely enlightening for "pocket-book centrists" - a term for the majority of Americans simply concerned with living a comfortable and fair American dream. This morning, the much vaunted cultural critic Frank Rich writes in The Times that:

No less unRead More...

Job Losses: They Slow Before We Grow

Nick Will — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:49:27 +0100

Thanks to www.calculatedriskblog.com for the following chart that shows job loss percentages following the onset of recessions since WWII. As for the depth of job losses, you see our current recession is on par with the recessions of 1948 and 1958. But the big most important question right now is this: how long will it take to get back above 0% when we get net job growth again? Here's the chart followed by some thoughts.