Ian Shepherdson Data Quotations

We have no real idea what the number next week will be, but we can be pretty sure that for the next few weeks the data will tell us next to nothing about the state of the economy across the country outside the areas hit by the storm.

One steep drop in housing starts does not make a downward trend, especially in a month which was very wet in the West and very cold in the Northeast. Still, the data are consistent with other signs of a softening housing market, most notably the drop in homebuilders' confidence. What really matters, though, is whether sales will fall fast enough to turn a softening into a collapse.

For the second straight week, jobless claims have substantially undershot the consensus, ... Analysts apparently do not want to accept that the flow of extra job losses caused by the events of Sept. 11 is slowing sharply, but that is exactly what the data indicate.

Overall, the recent sales data appear to point to a renewed upturn in spending.

The data suggest real consumers' spending rose marginally last month -- but we still expect only a 1.5 percent annualized increase in the fourth quarter,

The data confirm that the labor market is still not generating the sort of cost pressures many analysts expected with 4 percent unemployment.

We think the relief is temporary; no other data supports the slowdown story,

We think there is a good chance that home sales recover, or at worst stabilize, over the next few months. The starts data are potentially seriously misleading.

We expect further gains over the next couple of months in the wake of the plunge in gasoline prices. If we're right, the data will signal first quarter consumption growth of the order of 4 percent.

We think Mr. Greenspan is willing to give the data a chance; it will take bad data to force an August rate hike,

The revisions are not as big as we feared, ... The new April number shows sales at their lowest level since November, but the previous four months were exceptionally strong, in part due to favorable weather. Given the strong trend in mortgage applications, these data likely do not signal real housing weakness.

These data leave confidence very close to its cycle high, and completely unaffected by higher interest rates. Together with the rise in home sales also reported today, the data sit very uneasily with Mr. Greenspan's dovish tone last week and again today.

(These data are) bad news for (corporate profit) margins or future inflation -- or both,

These data again show that when people have substantial net assets, slower income growth need not kill spending,

The statement leaves room for inaction in November if the data fail to thrive.

The bottom line here is that the month-to-month volatility in the durable orders data is such that the true information content in a single report is very small -- there's just too much noise.

The upcoming data will soon enough force the Fed to change its stance, otherwise it will begin to look ridiculous,

The ISM survey clearly promises much bigger increases in production ahead, but for now the official data are lagging the survey a bit,

In the short-term, these data will reinforce the impression that the housing market is proving resilient in the face of higher mortgage rates, ... it will not last, because the current trend in home sales is not high enough to support this rate of house building in the medium-term.

Claims have now been essentially static for three months, so even if the latest declines turn out to be unsustainable, the data will still show that the trend is no longer rising rapidly, and may not be rising at all, ... It looks like the worst of the worst is now over in the labor market.

Claims are a good leading indicator of the unemployment rate; these data suggest the rate will be nudging 4% by mid-summer.

The headline is all about Boeing, which reported 200 new aircraft orders in May, up from 14 in April. Unusually, it seems that nearly all these orders have hit the official data immediately. Apart from this, however, these are soft data. Ex-transportation orders fell 0.2% and there was a downward revision to April, now put at -0.7%.