While broadly-speaking, both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ macro data has disappointed, the scale of those ‘missed expectations’ is stunning – worst since Lehman. While this is blamed on weather, the fact is that America had 30% less snow this year than last and still, as the following four chartsmen of the recession-pocalypse show, the YoY drops are on a scale not seen outside of a recession…
US Macro Data has surprised to the downside on a scale not seen since Lehman…
So here are the four charts that can only be ignored by the likes of Liesman, Kudlow, and Cramer…
Sales are weak – extremely weak. Retail Sales have not dropped this much YoY outside of a recession…
And if Retail Sales are weak, then Wholesalers are seeing sales plunge at a pace not seen outside of recession…
Which means Factory Orders are collapsing at a pace only seen in recession…
And finally – coming full circle – it appears everyone is scrambling for credit to afford to maintain even a semblance of living standards (and lift retail sales) but “rejections” of credit requests have never – ever – been higher…
So the credit available to goose retail sales, which will goose wholesale sales which will drive factory orders… is no longer available to every muppet with a 500 FICO (old or new version) Score!!
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But apart from that, given that US equities are at record highs, everything must be great in the US economy.
Bonus Chart: Just in case you figured that if domestic credit won’t goose the economy, what about the rest of the world… nope!! Export growth is now negative… as seen in the last 2 recessions.
