It's the weather Stupid XD

[Fox]

Well after shooting my mouth off in the comments for the last little bit. Just thought I'd start up a topic on the "weather" because it's just getting too funny to not give it its own topic.

The only news reports I see now that don't mention the "weather" are those about Ukraine. But hey, who knows. Maybe they're having bad weather over there too.

Let's start off with the weather's biggest claim to fame yet
Cold Weather Claims Another Victim: Fourth-Quarter GDP

The United States economy expanded at a much slower annual rate in the final months of last year than initially estimated. The downwardly revised estimate of GDP growth was a sign that moderate growth characterized the fourth-quarter of 2013, and reflected the frigid temperatures that engulfed much of the nation in recent months as well as softer foreign demand for American products. Consumer spending once again carried the U.S. economy, but the American consumer spent less than originally estimated last quarter as wage growth and job creation continued to be weak. While consumer spending has been resilient, the economic environment has been undeniably difficult.

Now note that bold part above because here we have.
US stocks lose bulk of gains as Apple and other technology shares hit

"Clearly the weather is having an impact on economic activity, as that marginal shopper is just not out as they would be. We feel we'll get a payback from a cooped up, restraining winter, and we could see healthy numbers in the spring and summer as people get out and enjoy themselves," said Jim Anderson, an investment specialist for JP Morgan Private Bank in Michigan.

While many economic reports have showed slower activity in January, much of the weakness has been in retail sales, housing and employment, "areas of the economy that would be the most impacted by adverse weather conditions," wrote Tracie McMillion, asset allocation strategist, and Luis Alvarado, investment research analyst, at Wells Fargo Private Bank.

Clearly!

So in one article we have the "Consumer is saving the economy", and the next we have the "Consumer is sinking the economy". Nice!

Oh and just to cap off the "weather/housing" angle, here we have:
Pending-home-sales index ticks up 0.1% in January

By region, the gauge of pending home sales in January rose 3.5% in the South and 2.3% in the Northeast, while falling 4.8% in the West and 2.5% in the Midwest.

So the regions with the worst weather actually show great gains. Go Figure. This is also Pending sales so in theory this represents the people out slogging in the snow December and January viewing houses. But then California is down almost 5%. It must be the weather out there then. I mean if cold and snow doesn't stop people from buying houses then surely sunny and hot will.

Or maybe it's BadJuJu with and his snowball fight. I guess you should stop now. We wouldn't want you to collapse the US economy.


Oh and the market did a ricochet off it's latest hit on the all time high. Looks to me like some smart money is selling the spikes. I'm still holding on to my "Crash begins this spring" call. Surely they can't blame the weather forever can they?

Anyways, more to come I'm sure

[vt]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Well winter occurs each year..............

There is empirical research on weather affects on investing:

http://phys.org/news9164.html

http://www.michiganjb.org/issues/41/text41b.pdf

[BadJuju]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Someone should kill Consumer. He's destroying the world apparently!

[Fiat Currency]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Someone should kill Consumer. He's destroying the world apparently!

He used to be called Citizen, until the mainstream media fixed that … you know, the kind of person who has the right to stand up against a corrupt government … like in the Ukraine.

[shiny!]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

He used to be called Citizen, until the mainstream media fixed that … you know, the kind of person who has the right to stand up against a corrupt government … like in the Ukraine.

Thank you! Politicians and media referring to citizens as consumers is one of my pet peeves, along with them diluting the purpose of the Bill of Rights by calling every other piece of "consumer legislation" coming out of CONgress a Bill of Rights. Humph.

[Slimprofits]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Did anyone else see this down below? Note the date. News = Noise

• J-O-Bs: Turns Out It's the Weather
  
  By don in forum News
  
  Replies: 7 Last Post: 02-06-11, 08:31 PM

[vt]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Shiny,

Any bill of rights from the current Demo/Repub axis is for the rights of their campaign donors and the FIRE economy.

[shiny!]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Shiny,

Any bill of rights from the current Demo/Repub axis is for the rights of their campaign donors and the FIRE economy.

I'm afraid it's worse than that. The "rights" in consumer bills like The Patient's Bill of Rights, The Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, The Consumer Bill of Rights, The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, The Electric Customers' Bill of Rights, ad nauseum, are granted by government. Whatever the government gives, the government can take away.

In contrast, the real Bill of Rights is a list of unalienable human rights not granted by government and not revokable by government. The real Bill of Rights isn't just another piece of negotiable legislation! By making the term commonplace for trivial consumer laws, people are subtly being conditioned to think that the rights listed in the Bill of Rights must also devolve from government and be the result of government largesse. That is a very, very dangerous fallacy.

Here I go derailing another thread. Sorry, folks. Stepping off my soapbox now...

[Lasher]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Thank you! Politicians and media referring to citizens as consumers is one of my pet peeves...

I agree with that. A similar one that bothers me is corporations calling people (employees) 'resources'. It makes a person interchangeable with a stapler.

[don]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Citizens are Consumers, Employees are Resources, Corporations are People . . .

[charliebrown]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

I hate to be a downer, but if you are a worker bee, and you ever are a fly on the wall at a big boys meeting you will here that you are just a programmer,
just an secretary, just a pilot, just a flight attendant. A replacible cog in a the more important machine.

I had the disgusting privilege of sitting next to the area where the ceo's and lawyers worked in the failed merger between United Airlines and U.S. Air in the nineties. people were categorized, counted in the thousands terminated and horse traded just like furniture or live stock.

[Fox]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

Well just to follow up on this.

Looks like we had an upswing in employment
U.S. gains 175,000 jobs in February

The U.S. generated 175,000 jobs in February despite harsh winter weather, suggesting the economy has not slowed as much as a recent spate of indicators appear to show.

The unemployment rate, meanwhile, edged up to 6.7% from 6.6% to mark the first increase in 14 months. Yet the rate rose because more people entered the labor force in search of jobs, which is usually a sign that they think more work is available.

What’s more, employment likely would have been stronger if not for the weather. The number of people who said they could not make it to work surged above 600,000 last month, twice as many as is normally the case in February.

The better-than-expected headline number on jobs lifted U.S. stocks in early action and paves the way for the Federal Reserve to continue to withdraw stimulus from the economy. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected an increase of 140,000 nonfarms.

So a little bit of an uptick, but below recovery levels, in employment could mean some weather related bounce back? However the report contains some "weather" contradictions:
more jobs from better weather, but building worse than January?
Surge in hiring of Professionals over January?
Bars and restaurants hiring?

All in all, better than expectations, but not really a good report.

and with all this, unemployment ticks up. I suspect this is the "long term discouraged" coming back on to the radar. If this starts picking up steam then the FED will be in a pickle again. "Economy improving and unemployment rising?" Surely it couldn't be that there is something wrong with their employment statistics could it? So how does that dual mandate go again? XD

Anyways, lets see what happens next

[Forrest]

Re: It's the weather Stupid XD

It's so nice to have trouble starting up somewhere other than America...the money comes here, and gets invested, and we make money and spend it.

Just like capitalism.