{"id":2507,"date":"2007-12-05T16:02:01","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T16:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=2507"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:48:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:48:33","slug":"fat-lady-yet-to-sing-for-us-consumer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=2507","title":{"rendered":"Fat lady yet to sing for US consumer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid all the gloom and doom, here are some reasons for thinking US consumer spending is not about to collapse: <\/p>\n

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  1. Vehicle sales – normally sensitive to shifts in consumer sentiment – held steady at a 16.2 million annualised rate in November, in line with the year-to-date average. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    1. Withheld employment tax receipts – a good real-time indicator of incomes – rose at a respectable 5.3% annual pace in October \/ November.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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      1. Layoff announcements have remained broadly stable in recent months – November’s total was down 5% from a year before. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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        1. Mortgage applications have picked up in response to a steep fall in mortgage rates for non-jumbo prime loans, with the four-week moving total at its highest since 2005. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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          1. Reflecting lower house prices as well as mortgage rates, the National Association of Realtors’ housing affordability index has also recovered to a two-year high. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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            1. Retail gasoline prices have started to come down in lagged response to lower wholesale prices, which are back at mid-October levels. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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              1. Wal Mart’s share price has perked up recently and usually correlates well with short-term swings in retail sales – see chart. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                While ongoing money \/ credit market stresses are concerning, my indicators suggest the odds currently remain against a US recession. <\/p>\n

                \"USRetailSalesExAutos.jpg\"<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                Amid all the gloom and doom, here are some reasons for thinking US consumer spending is not about to collapse: Vehicle sales – normally sensitive to shifts in consumer sentiment – held steady at a 16.2 million annualised rate in November, in line with the year-to-date average. Withheld employment tax receipts – a good real-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money-moves-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4816,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2507\/revisions\/4816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}