Blue World Economic Index™
Released Monday, January 04, 2016 for December 2015 and Year End Summary
“Yellen indicated that Wednesday’s rate hike was partially defensive. If rates stayed at near zero, the Fed might not have the tools to combat a recession.”
So, we guess the Fed Chair believes that in order to combat a recession we must first cause one…?
Ms. Yellen described the rate hike as “preemptive.” Based on the data that must mean preemptive of growth! As Blue World has been saying, the data do not support a hike…period. That is evidenced in the economic metric output from 2015 as viewed through the prism of business managers as opposed to politicians, economists and other “experts” like the Fed Chair.
The December 2015 BWEI came in at -.23, a .024 drop from the November 2015 reading. The average for all of 2015 was -.11 with September being the only month to break above zero.
Of the eight major categories Consumer, General, Manufacturing, Services and Retail posted small declines while Employment, Inflation and Real Estate showed fractional improvement over November 2015.
For the year 2015, Consumer measures led the way at .51 while Real Estate, Retail and Services eked out tiny positive readings leaving Employment, Inflation and Manufacturing in the negative column. General measures logged in at 0.00.
If you have any kind of a pulse you already know the markets came out of the 2016 gate in spectacularly negative fashion and the ISM reading is in full blown contraction…but that will factor in to January 2016.
We wish everyone a safe and prosperous New Year and when you vote please remember, POLICY MATTERS!
