Anthony Chan Growth Quotations

The plunge in inventory accumulation does suggest that firms are not confident enough to add merchandise to their shelves. But they will not be able to do this indefinitely because everyone knows that sporting empty shelves in a rising growth environment is not prudent.

Futures are down this morning, feeling the pressure of Texas Instruments' weak forecast. Now it is clear that growth is certainly going to slow. The question is, by how much?

Outside of energy, the consumer is fine. That's why growth this year will be weaker than last year, and it will be weaker next year than this year.

Wages have stagnated over the past couple of years; employers have no incentive to change wages. Eventually we will see incentive packages moving more closely in line with growth in the economy, but it's not going to happen soon.

We are not likely to see faster employment growth until the current growth trend in productivity slows significantly.

We're not going to get the 1.5 percent productivity growth necessary to produce all those jobs. Such a fall-off would be out of line with what normally happens.

We're coming off 6 percent consumer spending growth in the fourth quarter, and that's going to moderate. It's not going to collapse, but see we spending in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 percent for the rest of the year.

The prospects of 4 percent real GDP growth (or possibly more after future data revisions) during the third quarter are back on the table,

This report was very encouraging. It gives us stronger employment growth than the market was expecting while none of negative side effects of economic growth are present, such as higher inflationary pressure from wages.

When you listen to Greenspan's speech, you hear a fear about the sustainability of economic growth and no inflation pressures. Guess what that spells? Lower interest rates and postponing a return to higher rates, to insure the sustainability of growth.

Exports increased by such a small amount, it's not enough to tell me the inventory problem is going to go away. We need world economic growth to start picking up.

What it tells us is that we may see a bit of an easing off of economic growth or momentum. But even though the trajectory of growth may, in fact, ease a bit in 2006, I think the expansion remains intact.

Corporate earnings growth is slowing. Earnings might be growing at 9 to 10 percent, and that's still impressive. But they're going in the wrong direction.

The trade deficit coming in a bit wider suggests growth is going to be a lot slower. It throws more support on the notion that there is more uncertainty in the short run. But that's premature speculation.

A declining deficit may be signaling a slight loss of economic growth momentum.

The momentum going into 2006 is clearly healthy. We will be able to withstand weaker growth for the rest of the quarter and almost not miss a heart beat.

This gives the Fed license to continue executing monetary policy. If they see any signs of slow growth in employment, industrial production, or retail sales, they certainly have the green light to make another cut. They have total flexibility to do whatever it takes to prevent a recession.

This action really reveals the Fed's excitement with the emerging signs of economic growth we're seeing.

Although we should get a boost from the reduction in tax withholding along with tax rebates to lower-income taxpayers, the fear is that the persistence of poor labor-market conditions and continuing geopolitical risk may end up tempering economic growth conditions during the third quarter.

Although the current growth environment is not impressive, positive growth is still positive growth. On the darker side of things, however, we must admit that the economy still lacks the growth momentum needed to correct many of the labor market ailments.

There is not much growth behind the curtain when all is said and done.

It's a healthy development. It tells us the underlying momentum of the economy was stronger, so we can afford to take a bigger hit in the second quarter and still have respectable growth for the year.

It's unreasonable to expect that the information we have so far could justify another cut right now. We need to see more evidence the economy is headed for much slower growth in the months ahead.

It's difficult to foresee a growth rate where we will find 320,000 jobs

These numbers tell us that the underlying productivity surge observed in recent years remains alive and well. If productivity could rise by 1.1 percent during a sluggish growth environment, imagine what can happen once the U.S. reverts back towards trend economic growth.

These numbers give us an indication of the trend, and the trend is still telling us we're in improvement mode, not in breakout mode, where job growth is surging,

The fears we had that growth was pretty soft and fungible are basically coming out; that's what the data are showing.

In the short run, it's a no-win situation for the administration. But longer term, it's a win-win situation because you keep financial flows going, and economic growth will become a lot firmer.

I think a 0.2 percent decline in economic growth due Katrina's impact on oil and the regional economy is a realistic assumption,

The jump in payrolls this month shows that although the economy clearly went through a wider-than-expected soft patch, it does not appear as though the shortfall in growth was permanent,