Economic Indicators for July 15

Here I am waiting for a flight from Rochester, NY to go home via Chicago and I check the economic news out at 5:30am PST, and guess what, I see more bad news. For a starter, the PPI came in at -0.5 percent, which is another indicator we are in Deflation, not Inflation! Anybody listening out there? And that's with all the stimulation the gov't was allowed to spend. Paul Krugman warned that we needed twice as much stimulus back when the government was deciding what was needed, but Republicans in the Senate and a few Democrats like Ben Nelson and Independent Joe Lieberman wouldn't support any more. In fact they didn't even suppot the amount which was approved by Democrats and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Thank God they passed what they did!

Here's the other piece of news. The NY Fed announced that the Empire Manufacturing Index came in at 5.0, which is barely manufacturing. Last month the number was 19.6 and the expectation for this month was for a reading of 19.0, so how's that for a taste of reality.

One last piece of data to type on this iPhone, Continuing Claims came in much higher than expected at 4.654 Million Continuing Claims versus an expected number of 4.440 Million Claims. Still think the economy is getting better? What planet are you living on, because it doesn't look that way from where I sit!

I will be watching the market as much as I can traveling home today. God bless the iPhone! Good luck investing or trading.