*Investors Blog*

Of course there are revisions; that does not make them false, and not a lie. The reported numbers are estimates based on current data. Revisions are made as additional data comes in. Reporting revisions shows integrity. Revisions are an important part of every financial report.

Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.

At the very least, the last 6 months or so have been trending upward; a good thing.
More jobs IS a good thing.

February and March were revised downward by a total of 149,000

Let's see how April is adjusted. Always downward, because they play funny with the numbers.
 
Of course there are revisions; that does not make them false, and not a lie. The reported numbers are estimates based on current data. Revisions are made as additional data comes in. Reporting revisions shows integrity. Revisions are an important part of every financial report.

Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.

At the very least, the last 6 months or so have been trending upward; a good thing.
The data for the last 3 months have had huge revisions downwards. From a statistical standpoint this is really bad. If you look at past revisions they were much smaller as a percentage of the total and these are way outside of normal statistical and methodology error.

March was revised down 30% - huge number
February was revised down 20% - also huge

Last fall they made adjustments to the seasonal adjustment - took 105K jobs from June and added them to I think September.
If its seasonal and we have 50 years of data, why are they suddenly making huge adjustments to the seasonality model?

Their model is wrong or their manipulating. Its irrelevant to me either way - the data isn't worth following until its more reasonable.

I never understood why one particular month of data means anything anyway. 6 month moving average maybe means something.
 
The data for the last 3 months have had huge revisions downwards. From a statistical standpoint this is really bad. If you look at past revisions they were much smaller as a percentage of the total and these are way outside of normal statistical and methodology error.

March was revised down 30% - huge number
February was revised down 20% - also huge

Last fall they made adjustments to the seasonal adjustment - took 105K jobs from June and added them to I think September.
If its seasonal and we have 50 years of data, why are they suddenly making huge adjustments to the seasonality model?

Their model is wrong or their manipulating. Its irrelevant to me either way - the data isn't worth following until its more reasonable.

I never understood why one particular month of data means anything anyway. 6 month moving average maybe means something.
Again, revisions show integrity.
100% agree one month is a point in time; it does not make a trend. It may even be a statistical outlier.
The 6 month trend is positive, a good thing.

I was a statistical model builder in my career. Models have to change; there is no static. The numbers tell a story, it is up to analysts and experts in each area to intrepret those numbers. This makes the model better.

By the way, I love numbers. Numbers are the language of nature; the language of our universe.
 
Again, revisions show integrity.
100% agree one month is a point in time; it does not make a trend. It may even be a statistical outlier.
The 6 month trend is positive, a good thing.

I was a statistical model builder in my career. Models have to change; there is no static. The numbers tell a story, it is up to analysts and experts in each area to intrepret those numbers. This makes the model better.

By the way, I love numbers. Numbers are the language of nature; the language of our universe.
Yes but when your revisions are 3 standard deviation outliers, in a model that has been revised since 1979, has 60,000 individual respondants and 15,000 companies, if you know anything about statistics it makes you at least pause.

Like I said, only 2 possible explanations - broken model or manipulation.
 
It takes about 12 months to notice the effects of interest rates . Therefore were only feeling the effects of the first and maybe the second rate hike so far. The1st was 25 bp and 2nd was 50 bp .

Screenshot 2023-05-05 at 19-57-09 Public ChartLists StockCharts.com.webp
 
Yes but when your revisions are 3 standard deviation outliers, in a model that has been revised since 1979, has 60,000 individual respondants and 15,000 companies, if you know anything about statistics it makes you at least pause.

Like I said, only 2 possible explanations - broken model or manipulation.
There are always more explanations. I think we can rule out manipulation, because they are reporting revisions.
 
I personally don't think a soft landing is possible. The issues we have was the money supply was blown way out of proportion, and the fed balance sheet if overall flat since first of January, due to the $300B injection due to SVB, and the government isn't anywhere near talking about cuts.

So the private sector has to put out 100% of the inflation fire on its own, and to do that overall spending needs to slow, then private sector needs to go negative to offset the flat fed reserve and growing government.

So I suppose technically that means you could get a soft landing to overall GDP, but private sector would have to be negative.

Its basic math. P+F+G need to go negative or at minimum flat.

F is flat
G is growing.

P gets to hold the bag.
 
I have a question... What is the "correct" interest rate? I guess it depends on which side of the deal you are on.
I am looking for 2 or 3 properties right now. Low rates makes buying money cheaper, so property values rise.
I am a cash buyer so I want want higher interest rates!
Obviosly that varies depending on whether your a borrower or saver.

From the feds perspective - which is all that really matters - its the rate that keeps prices stable and unemployment low - per their mandate. Whatever that number is.
 
No, rate of inflation does.
You do have a point but at the rate that there raising interest rates .... which BTW is the most they ever done in this short period of time I dont think theres gonna be a soft landing . Maybe we need to give it some more time to take effect .
 
You do have a point but at the rate that there raising interest rates .... which BTW is the most they ever done in this short period of time I dont think theres gonna be a soft landing . Maybe we need to give it some more time to take effect .
Absolutely it will take time. Heck, we are coming out of a horrible WW pandemic; there is war in Ukraine which we support, China concerned with its interests, wage mismatch vs inflation. mfg supply chain decimated, trucking, on and on. There are no guarantees. But so far so good. Our nation is strong. I am so positive about our future.

So far, we are experiencing a soft landing. That's remarkable, no one thought it possible. I didn't. Analysts were calling for a Paul Volker slam the brakes approach. We didn't yet are in recovery; that's what's remarkable. Inflation is coming down, slowly, with jobs growth. But interest rates, debt ceiling, fed budget, etc. need to be dealt with in a timely manner or all bets are off.

Our complex economy is like a huge sailing ship, made to go out and traverse the troubled waters. It does not turn on a dime.
 
Interesting how things will play out with an election around the corner.
I’m still 90% cash on sidelines….. 10% trading here and there if I’m not traveling for work.

With a bank failing every few weeks and crazy amount of toxic debt it’s only a matter of time we see more banks failing and Gov say not to worry about anything.

Some people using multiple Buy Now Pay Later apps to buy groceries and other necessities.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ake-americans-use-buy-now-pay-later#xj4y7vzkg

.
 
Like I said, only 2 possible explanations - broken model or manipulation.
Or a dynanic economy that's trying to be controlled by interest rate hikes and other dynamic factors that no model can 100% predict. Kind of like crazy weather that usually accurate weather models get right most of the time, but not always in all weather circumstances.
 
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