While total consumer spending has contracted at its fastest rate in 35 years, consumer durable goods spending grew at its fastest rate in two decades.
The current relationship between extreme accelerating growth in real disposable income and extreme accelerating contraction in consumer spending is unprecedented.
4Q2020 U.S. GDP increased by 4% thanks in part to strength in manufacturing activity.
The annual rate of contraction decelerated for the sixth straight month, indicating that the annual rate of contraction in cutting tool orders should bottom in the first quarter of 2021.
Federal programs designed to help the country's financially worse off borrowers from overwhelming debt burdens are generally working. These programs are proving to help the economically hardest hit and most vulnerable to the pandemic; however, the number of borrowers facing some form of long-duration credit stress is insidiously accelerating.
Durable goods new orders during the fourth quarter of 2020 were showing strong year-over-year gains. One high-frequency measure that can serve as a proxy for more recent durable goods orders is railcar activity measured weekly.
That’s the fastest rate of growth in housing permits since June 2015 and the second-fastest since July 2013.
Starting from a much higher level, the monetary base is growing almost as fast as it did in 2008-2009. Typically, this leads to increased capital equipment consumption.
Durable goods production contracted at its slowest rate since February 2020 in December.
The GBI: Metalworking backlog indicates that there will be further improvement in durable goods capacity utilization in 2021.
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