Gina Martin Quotations

We're going to fill up all of our buses, and hopefully, we'll bring them up and if we have to go back down there and pick up another group of people, we'll just keep going until they don't need our help anymore.

We're basically guessing how the BLS adjusts for Katrina, which is an even bigger stretch than we normally have to do.

We're consistently breaking records with this report, and just about every month is bigger than expected, so I don't think there's any great change to the story.

Single family starts will likely remain elevated until we see a significant increase in long term interest rates.

Single family housing starts, which correlate closely with changes in average mortgage rates, remain robust for now, ... We should start to see this series moderate in future months as higher mortgage rates keep a lid on borrower interest. However, mortgage rates have plenty of room to move before they even reach pre-recession levels. As a result, we may not see a slowdown in housing construction until the autumn months of this year.

Measures of consumer perceptions should be watched carefully for large and drastic moves, but the analyst who relies on small moves for an indication of consumer purchasing behavior is likely to get burned.

If anything, this confirms the Fed's bias towards inflation rather than worrying about a slow down in growth. The Fed seems to have no worries about growth, as least as far as manufacturing is measured by ISM.

I think it is a critical number. It's one of the first readings we get on consumer confidence post-Katrina.

The 2002 holiday season will likely be a moderate one, not blowing away modest expectations, but not disappointing them either.

The outsized decline in starts in November is a bit confusing given the steady and elevated pace of permitting over the last several months.

We expect interest rates to continue rising and home prices to rise at a slower pace in the year ahead. This combination makes withdrawal of mortgage equity a less likely source of funds for consumers in the future.

Both new and existing home sale prices over the past few months have already been trending downward. Prices will continue to feel downward pressure as more and more units are posted for sale in the marketplace.

Core prices are going to continue to edge a little higher. The extreme increases in energy and commodity costs that we've had are going to seep through to the core. Core prices worry the Fed.

Core prices are at a little higher pace than the Fed is comfortable with, but they're certainly not out of bounds, and the interest rate increases over the past year and a half have kept inflation relatively low.

energy and oil prices are on the minds of the non-manufacturing businesses.

Sometimes, we're wondering what we can do to help and unfortunately, these people are going through a difficult time. It's a small part we can play. At least it's something we can do.

An uncertain election will do that -- people don't know who the president will be, what's ahead.

It's going to be a big week for economic data, but a lot of it will be compromised by so-called seasonal adjustments. The warm weather in January may cause some unforeseen swings in the data, making it look rosier than it would have been otherwise, and that could cause some volatility in the markets as well.

Consumers have access to cash. They took out a record $804 billion in mortgage equity withdrawals in the third quarter.

Consumers are experiencing very strong income gains and that's helping them deal with these gas prices a little better. It's providing quite a cushion.

It's not a coincidence that commodities prices are increasing simultaneously with capacity utilization.

Economists all realize this number is not a big deal, but people will be trading on the number this week whether it's a big deal or not.

The biggest item affecting trading next week will be the consumer price index, because everybody wants to determine how far the Fed will go. And the forward forecasts of the retailers are worth watching as well, because consumers are going to face greater constraints this year due to higher interest rates and a slowing housing market.

The underlying labor market is probably about the same, with claims in the 300,000 to 320,000 range and job creation of 180,000 to 200,000 a month.