Ian Shepherdson Slowing Quotations

There is certainly nothing in this report to suggest any serious slowing, or any slowing at all, in the economy is near.

If this continues, it can do real damage to core inflation, making it all the more important that the Fed succeeds in slowing the economy to ease inflation pressure.

Given the huge decline in consumer confidence, this (gain in spending) does not seem unreasonably weak, especially with consumers' real after-tax income growth slowing too.

Given the complete absence of meaningful inflationary pressure evident in the economy now, and -- as the Fed put it, 'tentative evidence of a slowing in certain interest-rate sensitive sectors of the economy' -- we think there is very little chance that rates will rise again in the current cycle.

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.

There is no chance of a spontaneous slowing in home sales. The market will soften if -- and only if -- mortgage rates rise significantly.

Overall, solid domestic final demand, but the second quarter will be much weaker. We expect growth to slow to 3% or less, led by a sharp slowing in consumption.

Looking forward, we think there is next to no chance these numbers mark the start of a real slowing in consumer spending. The markets will no doubt take comfort from the headlines, but it is temporary relief.

The trend in sales is probably not as weak as this seems to suggest, but there is no question that the condo/co-op market is slowing much more dramatically than the market for single-family homes. Even in the latter case, however, sales have fallen more than 10% from their summer peak.

they strongly suggest that the trend in employment growth is slowing hard. A big drop in May payrolls may be in the cards.

It is tempting to argue that two straight months of sales nearer to the 900,000 level than one million...is evidence of a real slowing in housing. But it probably tells us more about the awful weather across much of the country,

The headline was pulled down by slightly bigger declines in gasoline, natural gas and fuel oil prices than we expected. Core PPI is now up just 1.7% year over year, down from May's 2.8% peak. It will slow further in the wake of the slowing in raw-materials prices, but the Fed cares much more about the labor market than PPI.