Central Perk: 28 dec. 2012

vineri, 28 decembrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mercy! Isn’t a Late Day Selloff Illegal?
European PMI Retail Sales Collapse: Near-Record Drop in Italy Retail Sales; French Retail Sales Drop 9th Consecutive Month; Germany Retail Sales Back in Contraction
Four Strikes Is An Out; Obama Proposes Last Minute "Mini Deal" Essentially Scrapping All Cutbacks, While Adding Milk Lobby Bonus
France Economic Implosion Underway; French Retail Sales Contract 9th Consecutive Month as Cost Inflation Surges
Japan Manufacturing PMI Downturn Accelerates; Output and New Orders Suffer Sharpest Contractions for 20 Months; Cheaper Yen Cannot Save Japan

Mercy! Isn’t a Late Day Selloff Illegal?

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 01:48 PM PST

I hope you are as outraged as I am by this late-day stock market action.

S&P 500 Futures 10-Minute Chart

Since when is a late day selloff legal? And for an entire hour with six consecutive red candles!

And in the month of December too! What happened to my Santa Rally? I demand a Congressional inquiry.

Goodness! I was sure such action was illegal. Clearly, it should be illegal, and I thought it was already.

It's no wonder Fiscal Cliff legislation failed. Republicans and Democrats alike forgot to pass circuit-breaker provisions to halt (or better yet prevent) market declines late in the day, as well as this late in the year.

Please call your Senators and Representatives today, demanding their immediate attention on this matter.

After all, everyone knows that jobs and fiscal prudence are irrelevant. It's the stock market that's vital to the economy.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

European PMI Retail Sales Collapse: Near-Record Drop in Italy Retail Sales; French Retail Sales Drop 9th Consecutive Month; Germany Retail Sales Back in Contraction

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 12:58 PM PST

Inquiring minds are noting the expected (at least in this corner) collapse in European retail sales as measured by PMI indices in Italy, France, and Germany, the three largest Eurozone economies.

Earlier today I took a look at France. For details, please see France Economic Implosion Underway; French Retail Sales Contract 9th Consecutive Month as Cost Inflation Surges.

This article will look at Germany and Italy, the first and third biggest eurozone economies.

Italy

The Markit Italy Retail PMI® shows Steep downturn in high street spending continues in December.

Key points:

Near survey-record year-on-year fall in retail sales

Rate of job losses fastest since July

Business sentiment weakens to series low

Summary:

Italy's retail sector remained in a steep downturn in December, with sales dropping sharply according to both monthly and yearly measures. Gross margins decreased amid a further rise in average wholesale prices, while firms cut employment and purchasing activity in line with lower sales. The month also saw business sentiment hit a record low.

December data pointed to another sharp month-on-month drop in Italian retail sales. This was signalled by Italian Retail PMI® registering 36.8, up from November's seven-month low of 35.5 but slightly below its average over the year as a whole of 37.2. The latest decrease in high street spending was the twenty-second in consecutive months, and attributed by panellists to greater tax burdens, weak consumer sentiment and media scaremongering.

When measured on a year-on-year basis, the decline in retail sales was one of the most marked since data collection began in January 2004. In fact, only in December 2008 and May 2012 have faster annual rates of decline been recorded.

Comment:

Phil Smith, economist at Markit and author of the Italian Retail PMI®, said: "2012 surpassed 2008 as the worst year in the survey's history, with the PMI showing sharp monthly contractions in high street spending throughout and never once climbing above its pre-2012 historic average. The series measuring year-on-year changes in sales hit a record low back in May and came close to that mark in the latest survey period as consumer spending power was weakened further amid added tax pressure. Firms persistent attempts to boost sales through discounts have proved largely fruitless over the past 12 months, such has been the extent of the downturn in demand among Italy's households."

Germany

The Markit Germany Retail PMI® shows Retail PMI hits lowest level for eight months.

Key points:

Moderate reduction in sales since the previous month

Actual sales fall short initial expectations for December

Job creation was maintained

Comments:

The seasonally adjusted Germany Retail PMI dropped to 47.6 during December, from 50.2 in November, signalling a moderate month-on-month contraction in like-for-like sales. December's index reading was below the long-run series average (49.8) and pointed to the sharpest pace of contraction for eight months. Reports from retailers in Germany suggested that strong competition, unfavourable weather conditions and unexpectedly low consumer footfall had all contributed to lower sales.

December sales disappoint compared to targets

German retailers signalled that actual sales at their stores fell short of prior expectations in December, continuing the trend of weaker than expected sales for the ninth month running. Moreover, the degree to which sales failed to reach initial targets was the most marked for any December since that recorded in 2009. Meanwhile, expectations for sales in the month ahead were the weakest since December 2009, with some retailers suggesting that earlier than planned promotional discounting will have a negative influence on like-for-like sales in January.

Margins squeezed again

Operating margins in the German retail sector declined again in December, thereby extending the current period of contraction to 25 months. Anecdotal evidence suggested that lower margins reflected strong competition and a sharp rise in average cost burdens during the month.

Italy Implosion Continues

Note that high street spending is in its twenty-second consecutive month of contraction.

Also note (and laugh at) the blame placed on "media scaremongering".

Germany Back in Contraction

German retail spending is back in contraction and this time I expect it to stay there, while laughing at the blame placed on "unfavourable weather conditions and unexpectedly low consumer footfall".

Signs point to a full-blown eurozone recession that is worsening nearly every month.

Germany cannot possibly be immune from this and indeed I blasted the IMF for proposing just that on January 9, 2012 in Dimwit Comment of the Day: Christine Lagarde, IMF Director says "Europe May Avoid a Recession This Year"

"The idea Germany may avoid a recession is silly enough. The idea Europe may avoid a recession is downright idiotic."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Four Strikes Is An Out; Obama Proposes Last Minute "Mini Deal" Essentially Scrapping All Cutbacks, While Adding Milk Lobby Bonus

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 11:25 AM PST

The one thing I am always afraid of in budget negotiations is that virtually nothing is done, or worse yet, something counterproductive is done.

Obama's latest Fiscal Cliff "Mini-Deal" Proposal is exactly the kind of counterproductive nonsense I am talking about.

Assuming the above Atlantic Wire article is correct ...

The deal would delay or replace the vast majority of spending cuts called for in the automatic sequester.
The deal would extend unemployment benefits
The deal would stop planned cuts to Medicare reimbursements
Out of the blue, and probably an attempt to buy farm-state votes, the deal purportedly would include a "milk fix" that allegedly would avoid a dairy market catastrophe created by the failure to renew the farm bill

Four Strikes Is An Out

I am against all four ideas and it's hard to say which one is worse. Certainly we need to scrap all farm subsidies, not put back those that have been scrapped.

Hopefully the House punts this ball a mile high, or better yet, let's hope this does not clear the Senate in the first place.

Purportedly the deal would only be for 60-90 days which would in all likelihood do nothing but allow further watering down of the proposal in yet another can-kicking exercise at that time.

Since the market is not blasting higher on this preposterous idea, it's safe to assume this deal is Dead-on-Arrival in the House, if it were to get there.

As I have said on numerous occasions, the best offer on the table is to let the alleged "fiscal cliff" happen.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

France Economic Implosion Underway; French Retail Sales Contract 9th Consecutive Month as Cost Inflation Surges

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 09:00 AM PST

Inquiring minds are noting the expected (at least in this corner) collapse in European retail sales as measured by PMI indices.

The spotlight for this post is France, the second largest Eurozone economy following Germany.

The Markit France Retail PMI® shows French retail sales fall for ninth consecutive month.

Key points:

Sales fall at sharper pace on both monthly and annual measures

Purchasing costs rise at strongest rate in ten months

Stocks of goods for resale decline at faster pace

Summary:

French retailers reported another month-on-month decline in sales during December – the ninth in succession which is a survey record. Sales were also down on an annual basis, and fell well short of retailers' plans. Gross margins remained under considerable pressure, partly reflecting a strong and accelerated rise in purchasing costs.

The headline Retail PMI® slipped to 46.8 in December, from 48.8 in November. The latest reading was indicative of a solid rate of contraction. Anecdotal evidence suggested that a difficult economic climate and low customer footfall had contributed to the drop in sales.

Actual sales at French retailers once again disappointed relative to previously set plans in December. The degree of undershoot was the greatest since August. Survey respondents are also pessimistic regarding the one-month outlook for sales.

Factors expected by retailers to boost sales over the coming three months include cold weather, new product launches and promotions. Those factors expected to depress sales include a weak economy, depressed consumer confidence and increased taxes.

Latest data indicated that French retailers' gross margins remained under strong pressure in December. Margins have declined in every month since February 2008.

Wholesale prices faced by French retailers continued to increase in December. The rate of inflation accelerated to the sharpest since February. Panellists reported that suppliers had generally raised prices in order to pass on higher raw material costs.

France Economic Implosion Underway

Retail sales in France fell for the 9th consecutive month, a new record. Deterioration is marked as well as expected.

Because of the sharp rise in inflation, things are even worse than they look at first glance of the PMI numbers.

The horrendous policies from president Francois Hollande and his socialist cronies including ridiculous tax hikes and inane rules on firing workers are going to cause massive heartburn (to put things mildly).

I have to laugh at the comment by Markit that "low customer footfall had contributed to the drop in sales". Nearly as amusing, note that retailers expect "increased sales because of cold weather."

For further reading, please consider economically insane proposal by French president Francois Hollande "Make Layoffs So Expensive For Companies That It's Not Worth It"

Given that any clear-thinking person should quickly realize that if companies cannot fire workers they will be extremely reluctant to hire them in the first place , it should be no surprise to discover French Unemployment Highest in 14 Years (And It's Going to Get Much Worse).

In France, Government spending amounts to 55% of total domestic output. For discussion, please see Hollande's Honeymoon is Over; 54% of Voters Unhappy; Unions Promise "War" in September.

Looking ahead to 2013, I Expect things in France to get worse at an accelerated pace.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Japan Manufacturing PMI Downturn Accelerates; Output and New Orders Suffer Sharpest Contractions for 20 Months; Cheaper Yen Cannot Save Japan

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 04:03 AM PST

The Markit/JMMA Japan Manufacturing PMI™ shows Downturn of manufacturing sector accelerated during December.

Key points:

Output and new orders register sharpest contractions for 20 months
Employment, purchasing and stocks all continue to be cut
Output charges lowered further as input prices remain unchanged

Summary:

Latest data from Markit/JMMA indicated that the performance of the Japanese manufacturing sector continued to deteriorate in December. Output, new orders and employment all fell compared to one month ago while margins remained under pressure as output charges declined amid ongoing price competition.

After adjusting for seasonal factors, the headline Markit/JMMA Purchasing Managers' Index™ (PMI™) registered a level of 45.0 in December. Down from 46.5, the PMI subsequently posted a 44-month low.

Output continued to decline markedly, with the sharpest contraction again seen in the capital goods producing sector. Total manufacturing production has now fallen for seven months in a row, with the latest reduction the sharpest seen since April 2011.

Falling volumes of incoming new business was the primary factor driving manufacturing output lower in December. As was the case with output, the fall in new order volumes was the steepest since April 2011, although the rate of decline was considerably sharper than seen for production.

New export order volumes also continued to fall in December, with companies reporting that demand from Chinese and European markets remained sluggish. The fall in orders from abroad was the steepest since July, with investment goods producers recording the steepest reduction.

Cheaper Yen Cannot Save Japan

Nearly every day someone sends me an email stating Japan's manufacturing and export machine will pick up with a falling yen.

Will it? Why?

Japan is in an economic war with China over disputed islands so that part of Japan's export business is dead, and will remain dead.

In isolation, a falling Yen will help Japanese exports to Europe. However, Europe is in a severe, as well as worsening recession, so a falling Yen alone will not revive sales.

In the US, car buyers are not as in love with Japanese cars as they once were, and the US has its own share of problems in a weakening if not outright recessionary economy.

Finally, a falling Yen will exacerbate Japan's energy problems as Japan is totally dependent on imports to meet its energy needs.

Japan wants inflation, but this is a strong case of "be careful of what you ask, because you may get it". Inflation is likely to destroy Japan, the real question is "when".

For more on Japan, please see

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish
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Damn Cool Pics

DIY Star Wars Lightsaber
The Making of Gold CombiBars
Beginners Guide To Snowboarding [Infographic]

DIY Star Wars Lightsaber

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 12:52 PM PST

DIY Lightsaber. The manual is missing but it still looks pretty impressive.

Via: turdferguson81

The Making of Gold CombiBars

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 10:00 AM PST

CombiBars are detachable bullion gold bars. You can easily break a small 1 g bar and sell it if you need cash. CombiBars are being produced by ESG, the German company Heimerle + Meule and the Swiss Mint Valcambi.

Beginners Guide To Snowboarding [Infographic]

Posted: 28 Dec 2012 09:35 AM PST

Whether you are a fan of the snow or not, you cant help but love to extreme sport of snowboarding. From the different types of snowboards to buy, to the rush of racing down a snow covered mountain, snowboarding is the ultimate sport for any age. For those of you who want to take your outdoor adventures a step beyond skiing, RIPT Apparel, brings you the beginners guide to snowboarding.

Click on Image to Enlarge.

Via: riptapparel

Olde Tyme Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 27 Dec 2012 06:51 PM PST

Posted by randfish

Salutations, flappers and dappers! Today we come to you from the golden age of the Internet. That's right, the 1920's! SEOmoz's resident Whiskbroom has put on his finest glad rags and is going to give you some knowledge, strictly on the level.

OK, you got us. We're not actually in the 1920's. But some of those old techniques that we all used in the past still work in 2012 and into 2013. Let's all watch Rand tell us all about them.

What older techniques are you still using and seeing great results? Let us know in the comments below.

Video Transcription

"Howdy SEOmoz fans, and welcome to this special edition of Old Tyme Whiteboard Friday. Now, this week on Whiteboard Friday I want to talk to you about the major search engines: Lycos, Northern Light, HotBot, AltaVista, Infoseek, Yahoo, Webcrawler, and Dogpile. Now these fine search engines are going to help your visitors get to your website. The website is a very important page. It's on something called the Internet. My understanding is there are tubes, system of tubes that connect so you can get to them, and the way to get to the top of these search engines, none other than, starting with keywords.

Keywords are the cat's pajamas. You must have keywords. You want to repeat them as often as you can, stuff them into your titles, put them in your meta keywords tags, your meta descriptions tags, all over the page if you can. If I could have a page that was just a big list of keywords, I would do it.

Next, doorway pages. These are magical. The doorway page is a great way to stuff keywords into a page and yet show that only to the search engines and not have to force it upon your users, because, as we all know, visiting a doorway page can get a little, you know, rough. So you want to gazoozle a bit and show the search engine your doorway page.

Next, submissions. Submissions are very critical if you want to earn a happy cabbage. Now, to do direct submissions, you need to find all the search engines that I've listed up here, plus many hundreds of others. Remember that many hundreds of secondary search engines power these major search engines. You want to get into those so you can get into these.

And last, but not least, directories. Directories are critically important. Submitting to the directories, getting included in the directories, you can't be fimble-fambling around here. You've got to do the hard work and get in the directories.

All right, everyone. In addition, to our Old Tyme Whiteboard Friday, we're going to do a little bit of serious Whiteboard Friday, but first a drink. It smells like heaven. Don't want to take too much at work here. There we go. Just take my handy . . . burns like heaven. I feel better already.

So old-tyme SEO had some weird things going on with it, but, in fact, there are some classics from the late '90s, from the early 2000's that still work today. We're going to help you with these.

First off, reciprocation. Actually, that feels ridiculous. Reciprocation, if you help other people out, they, in turn, will help you. I don't just mean this in terms of you link to someone else and they'll link to you, although that can be helpful. But what I mean is if you help someone out doing something, something on social media, something with their website, you can often get them to pay that back to you. I'll give you one of the best examples I've got.

We love to send tons and tons of traffic to other people's websites through the Moz Top Ten. When we do that, when we drive traffic from SEOmoz's email subscribers, about 250,000 people subscribe to the Moz Top Ten, that drives traffic to those sites, and then those sites all tell people, "Wow, I was in the Moz Top Ten. You should subscribe to it." Wonderful way to play reciprocation and to get something back for giving something out.

Being on the jiffy with your keyword research and targeting. So this is really interesting, because what I mean by on the jiffy is getting to a keyword before it makes its way into the common keyword research tools. This is mostly the AdWords search tool. Before Google has volume there, you can find phrases that have come out in news, new brand names and products, things that bloggers are talking about, things people are searching for and talking about on social media, trending items. Those things will have search volume next month, but they might not make their way into the keyword research tools for 30 or 60 days. That means you can jump the gun and be ahead of any of your competitors. Using search suggest for this is actually a really smart way to go too, because a lot of the times, those search suggest terms don't make their way into the AdWords keyword research tool.

Improving on the good works of others. I've been shocked to see, you know what, we have this inside our heads, as content producers, that we have to produce something very unique and different. But great artists steal, and it is just fine to take something else on the Web that's a good resource, that you think, "Man, that's solid but I could do it better," and do it better. We've had tons of success with this.

SEOmoz, when we first started out, I used to use Vaughns-1-pager around SEO ranking factors. Then I thought, "I wish there was a better one of that." We made our own ranking factors, and it worked out great. We got statistical data and the opinions of lots of SEOs and aggregated them, so it wasn't just me saying what I thought was important. That worked very, very well. It got us a ton of notoriety and citations and links.

Empathizing with the needs of your audience. This is one area where your distance from your customers hurts you. The further you are from your customers, the worse off you're going to be. But the closer you are, the better you can be. If you can spend time with your customers, talking to them, figuring out, "Hey, what do they need? What do they like? What are they missing? What do they not understand," not just about what you're doing, but about anything that's going on in your field, about any topic that a large percent of your customers are having, even if it doesn't really relate to what you sell or what you do, you can produce content and provide solutions, basic easy tools, a resource guide or a list. You can contract this out to somebody who might be an expert, to have them come in and produce the content for you, a video, a landing page that describes all these problems, a downloadable white paper, a research document. This kind of stuff works wonders in terms of not just getting engagement, but also targeting new keywords, reaching your audience, and making them delighted.

And finally, requesting action at the pinch of the game. So, a lot of the time we will do things that I think are a little bit foolish in the inbound marketing sphere. One of my favorite examples, worst examples too, is you get to a blog post and you look at the top and on the sidebar, and it's just filled with all these things asking you to share and subscribe and become my friend on Facebook. You kind of think to yourself, "I've never been here before. How do I know that I want to share this on LinkedIn, and pin it on Pinterest, and put it on Facebook?"

Ask in the pinch of the game. Once they've finished reading the article, then, at the bottom, right, that's the time to potentially ask. This happens all the time. For example, someone's just purchased something from you in an e-commerce store. One of my favorites was this store that I bought some supplies from, and they sent, in their email, in their thank you email and confirmation a, "If you had a great experience with our product, with our store, we'd love to get a link from you, and here's a little embed you can put on your site, saying that you're a customer." What a great time. Don't ask for it before you've done a good job for me. Ask for it after you've done a great job for me. That's the pinch of the game.

All right, everyone, I hope you've enjoyed Old Tyme Whiteboard Friday, and we will see you again next week for another edition, sans chopped mustache and ridiculous costume. Thanks everyone. Take care."

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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