joi, 1 octombrie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


GDPNow Forecast Plunges to 0.9% Following Advance Report on US Balance of Goods

Posted: 01 Oct 2015 05:58 PM PDT

The past few days have seen significant swings in the Atlanta Fed GDPNow Forecast.



We are right back to the initial forecast in August.

What Happened?

  1. On September 28 following the Personal Income and Outlays Report, the forecast rose 0.4 percentage points to 1.8%.
  2. On September 29, following the Census Bureau Advance Trade Report the forecast fell 0.7 percentage points to 1.1%.
  3. On October 1, following the Manufacturing ISM report, the forecast fell another 0.2 percentage points to 0.9%.

ISM Discussion

See my discussion ISM Flirts with Contraction, Export Orders and Backlogs Contract for 4th Month.

Advance Trade Numbers

Let's investigate the Census Report Numbers to see what's behind the 0.7 percentage point plunge on September 29.

The following table I put together will help visualize what happened. Numbers are in millions of dollars. Pay attention to the seasonally adjusted numbers.

MonthSeasonally Adjusted Balance of GoodsUnadjusted Balance of Goods
January-59,815-57,405
February-55,218-43,328
March-70,527-64,390
April-60,422-61,423
May-59,747-57,046
June-62,256-64,838
July-59,123-68,360
August-67,187-68,025

Notes:

  1. The numbers represent the balance of goods, not balance of trade (goods plus services). The full report will be available on October 6. 
  2. The seasonally-adjusted balance of goods deficit unexpectedly widened from $59.123 billion to $67.187 billion.

For the deficit to widen, exports fell, imports rose, or both. Certainly manufacturing exports fell for the 4th consecutive month as noted by the ISM report.

Recall that imports subtract from GDP and exports add to GDP.

GDP Revisions

On September 25, the BEA upped the Second Quarter GDP estimate from 3.6% to 3.9% based on "an upturn in exports, an acceleration in PCE, a deceleration in imports, an upturn in state and local government spending, and an acceleration in nonresidential fixed investment that were partly offset by decelerations in private inventory investment and in federal government spending."

Evolution of First Quarter 2015 GDP

  • +0.2% Initial
  • -0.7% Revised
  • -0.2% Revised
  • +0.6% Revised

GDP Quarter by Quarter

  • 1st  Quarter: 0.6%
  • 2nd Quarter: 3.9%
  • 3rd Quarter: 0.9% GDPNow Model

If those numbers hold, the average is about 1.8% annualized. Anyone think downward revisions coming?

Question number two: Anyone think the Fed will hike if 3rd quarter GDP is close to or below 1%?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Three Month Treasury Yields Turn Negative; Long End Flattening; Economy Strengthening or Recession Warning?

Posted: 01 Oct 2015 12:05 PM PDT

Curve Watcher's Anonymous points out 3-month treasury yields dipped briefly negative on several days recently.

Yield on the 3-month bill was negative again today. Here is a table I put together with Treasury Yield Quotes from Bloomberg.

Treasury Yields vs. Month and Year Ago

DurationCurrent YieldYield Month AgoYield Year AgoYield vs. Month AgoYield vs. Year Ago
3-Month-0.020.030.00-0.05-0.02
6-Month0.070.260.04-0.190.03
1-Year0.290.360.09-0.070.20
2-Year0.640.710.52-0.070.12
5-Year1.361.491.67-0.13-0.31
10-Year2.032.152.39-0.12-0.36
30-Year2.852.923.10-0.07-0.25

One could also use US Department of Treasury Daily Treasury Yield Curve Rates to produce an end-of-day view as opposed to the intraday snapshop above and chart below.

Yield Curve vs. Month Ago and Year Ago



click on chart for sharper image

Long End Flattening

The time line is not to scale, but the above chart still tells the correct story. In particular, note a negative rate at the front end and the flattening at the long end of the curve vs. a month ago and a year ago.

Economy Strengthening?

Three month treasuries should not be negative in a rate hike environment.

Yields at the short end of the curve, from 6-months to 2-years are slightly higher than a year ago, an indication of anemic hikes. But if hikes are coming, rates should not be lower than a month ago.

The yield on 6-month treasuries actually declined 19 basis point in past month.

Are hikes really coming?

Recession Warning

None of this should be happening in a rising rate environment with an allegedly strengthening economy.

In fact, action at the long end of the curve coupled with negative yields at the very front end is outright recessionary behavior.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

Pro-Independence Parties in Catalonia Unite to Form Government; Showdown with Madrid Coming Up

Posted: 01 Oct 2015 10:54 AM PDT

Pro-independence parties in Spain won an outright majority in the Catalonia regional election. The open issue was whether or not the two parties could come to terms and form a government.

Election Final Results



Note that prime minister Mariano Rajoy's PP party only got  8.5% of the vote. Suppress people long enough, and radical parties eventually take over.

Prior to the election, the leaders of CUP stated they would not work with Artur Mas, the leader of Junts pel Sí (Together for Yes).

Today they worked out their differences and will form a coalition regional government.

Shared Power

El Pais reports CUP Proposes a Presidency with Shared Power in Catalonia.

The number two of the CUP in the Catalan elections, Anna Gabriel, proposed Thursday that the new Government would have a "coral presidency", with "three or four profiles with a weight equivalent" to share power, without demanding the political "burial" of Artur Mas.

The shared government alternative would unlock the choice of Catalan president, and allow an active role for Artur Mas.

CUP Platform

CUP is a Popular Unity Candidacy. The CUP platform is what I would call radical leftist.
The CUP broadly refers to their economic model as socialist. Their political program calls for a "planned economy based on solidarity, aimed towards fulfilling the needs of the people", and defends the nationalization of public utilities, as well as transportation and communication networks. They also call for a nationalization of all banks receiving government bailouts and consider the public debt "illegitimate".

The CUP call for an end to nuclear energy, with the use of sustainable energy in its stead. They also call for a ban on GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and the creation of an "ecological economy".
Showdown with Madrid Coming Up

The socialist ideas of these groups cannot and will not work.

Nonetheless, they are going to try. Reuters reports Victorious Separatists Claim Mandate to Break with Spain.

Both groups stated they would "unilaterally declare independence within 18 months under a plan that would see the new Catalan authorities approving their own constitution and building institutions like an army, central bank and judicial system."

A serious showdown with Madrid is around the corner. Already, Madrid preemptively acted as noted in Spain's Secessionist Party Leaders to be Charged with "Act of Disobedience"

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

ISM Flirts with Contraction, Export Orders and Backlogs Contract for 4th Month

Posted: 01 Oct 2015 09:40 AM PDT

The ISM is positive at 50.2, but barely above the 50.0 break-even mark, and a bit below the Bloomberg Consensus Estimate of 50.5.
The ISM index, like nearly all other September indications, is pointing to trouble for the factory sector. At 50.2, the index is at its lowest point since May 2013. New orders, at 50.1, are at their lowest point since August 2012. Backlog orders, at a very low 41.5, are in their fourth month of contraction and won't be giving manufacturers much breathing room to keep up production. Export orders, at 46.5, are also in their fourth month of contraction and are a key factor behind the general weakness.

Production, at 51.8, continues to hold up better than orders but not by much and probably not for long given the weakness in orders. Input prices are in deep contraction at 38.0 which is the weakest reading since early in the year when oil prices broke down.
The ISM Peaked in September of 2014



Together with the various regional reports, manufacturing is clearly in recession. When was the last time the Fed hiked with such weakness?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

At Last, You Can Now Add Users to Your Moz Pro Account! - Moz Blog

At Last, You Can Now Add Users to Your Moz Pro Account!

Posted by adamf

Over the past few years, one feature has been requested more than any other. We call it Multiseat, which, at its core, is the ability for Moz Pro account owners to provide unique logins for their team members and/or clients.

Multiseat support is something that we have prioritized, reprioritized, started, and restarted, and for a number of reasons (some good, some less good) we never quite got there. Well, I'm happy to announce that after a great collaborative engineering effort, it is finally here!

We actually launched this feature quietly in August and have been monitoring usage and fixing issues to ensure Multiseat was ready for prime time before promoting it. So far hundreds of people are using it, and everything looks good!

In this post I'm going to describe what Multiseat does, how to set it up, who gets access, and what improvements are on the horizon.

What does Multiseat include today?

This first version of Multiseat supports most of the core functions requested by customers. These include:

You can set up unique logins for team members or clients

With Multiseat, you can add anyone who has or creates a free Moz community profile to your account. Previously the only way to share access was to share your password, which was far from ideal and not a great practice from a security perspective.

Multiseat can be useful in many scenarios:

  • Providing access to members of your team
  • Offering access to a client
  • Inviting a consultant to come help with your campaigns

Before Multiseat, if you were sharing your login, it was a pain to change and redistribute passwords if a team member left or a client engagement ended. Now that logins are separate from your core account, you can revoke access to someone who leaves and keep all of your other logins and passwords intact.

Billing information is now kept private to the account owner

This has been a common request, especially for larger organizations. Credit card and billing information is now kept private and is accessible only to the account owner.

You can independently control which account emails you receive

If your company has a lot of people managing a lot of campaigns, you may receive an awful lot of emails about data updates and completed reports, and for this email clutter I sincerely apologize. The good news is that each person with access to an account can now choose which campaigns to follow and thus limit emails from campaigns that aren't relevant.

You can be a seat on multiple accounts

We've heard that some of you engage with multiple clients, each with their own Moz account. You now have the ability to be added to as many client accounts as you need to. For each account to which you have been granted access, you will be able to log in with your own Moz login and password. No more asking each client to give you their login information, and then trying to remember them all.

Your Moz profile, community history and points will stay intact regardless of which accounts you've joined or left

Another benefit of this update is the separation of community profiles from Moz Pro accounts.

As a seat on one or more accounts, your MozPoints and interactions with the community can now follow you from engagement to engagement.

Sweet! So how do I add add new logins to my account?

If you go to your account settings, you'll find a brand new tab called Manage Seats (http://moz.com/account). Once here, you will have the option to add one or more of your colleagues to your account.

For more details on how to add seats check out this Q&A post.

Who has access to Multiseat?

All Moz Pro customers get access to Multiseat! Depending on your subscription level, you will have access to between 2 and an unlimited number of seats for your team to use. We packaged Multiseat into our existing subscriptions in a way that offers more seats for levels that are are more agency and team-focused.

That said, we are not yet totally sure how customers will be using this feature, so we will learn and tune as we go forward.

The current limits are as follows:

Subscription Level No. of Seats
Standard 2 Seats
Medium 10 Seats
Large 25 Seats
Premium Unlimited Seats
Enterprise Unlimited Seats

What's next for Multiseat?

While we've added a lot of new functionality with this release, there are still some important features that we haven't yet been able to get to. Most notably:

Transfer of account ownership

The next addition we know we need to make is the ability to transfer ownership of an account from one individual to another.

Control over which campaigns a seat can access

For v1, everyone can see all tools and campaigns. We've already received requests to allow the account owner to restrict individual logins so they can only see a subset of campaigns.

Please send us feedback!

This is just the start. We need your help to make this even better. Tell us what critical capabilities we are lacking. Tell us where we built things wrong. Tell us what is confusing. Now that we've launched this feature, we really want to make it work for you.


Also, while I have your attention...

I wanted to call out a few other updates that we've made this summer, just in case you missed them:

Mobile Rankings

Not only have we added Google mobile rankings to our capabilities, but we also gave everyone an extra search engine slot so that you can track mobile rankings for all of your existing campaign keywords without giving up any other search engine data you've been tracking. We also added tracking of Google's "Mobile-friendly" tag, so you can see which of the pages you rank for Google considers to be mobile-friendly. Learn more

Search Visibility Scores

It's been a challenge in the past to see how your rankings are trending across keywords. Search visibility represents the percentage of clicks we estimate that you get based on your ranking position(s) for the keywords you track. Filter by brand or any other tag you've added to see visibility for certain keywords sets, and compare your visibility against your competitors. Learn more

On-Page Analysis workflow improvements

After a lot of good customer feedback, we rethought the on-page analysis feature workflow. Aside from a general facelift, we added the ability for customers to add keywords and pages to analyze and track, or to choose them from a list of suggestions that we update each week. Keep an eye out for some more significant improvements to this feature soon. Learn more

You can now keep up with all of our new Moz Pro features and updates

To help you find all of the new features and updates we make each week, we've added a What's New page that is accessible from any Moz Analytics campaign.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for taking some time to read about our new updates, and as always, don't hesitate to let us know what we can do to make Moz better for you.


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Seth's Blog : Choose your impact

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