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3 Signs of a Recession Janet Yellen Is Ignoring

June 7, 2016

Most of the points made in this post are well known by all of you out there however I feel it is still worth posting. Plus it was point 2 that caught my eye “Businesses aren’t investing in capital equipment”. We have seen companies cut back on investments in other business and the lack of capital spending goes hand in hand. Now that we re dipping into negative territory policy makers should take note and realize that is business are not finding value in investing to grow their company than the underlying business environment is a huge concern.

Click here to visit the posting site over at Fortune.com.

The Fed Chair’s upbeat speech glossed over key warning signs.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was upbeat on Monday in a speech at The World Affairs Council, where she largely dismissed the negative implications of Friday’s jobs report, which showed that the U.S. economy added just 38,000 new jobs, the worst monthly reading in nearly six years.

Yellen argued that while the disappointing report “bears close watching,” she maintained that “positive economic forces have outweighed the negative,” and that she expects that “further gradual increases in the federal funds rate are likely to be appropriate” in the coming months.

We won’t know until next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting how the sharp pullback in job growth affected the official Fed view of the economy, but Yellen’s speech suggests that she will make the case to her colleagues that not all that much has changed. After all, new applications for jobless benefits are at historically low levels, while the rate at which workers are quitting their jobs—usually a sign of worker confidence and labor-market strength—have reached pre-recession levels.

But what if these data are lulling the Fed into a false sense of security? Sure, businesses are not firing many people, but they’ve also cut back significantly on hiring and other expenditures, suggesting that confidence has declined considerably. Here are three charts that should have Yellen and the Fed thinking twice about raising interest rates this summer.

The rate of job creation is falling fast

The most disturbing part of Friday’s jobs report is not that the headline number was as low as it was, but that revisions to previous month’s estimates were revised downward to the point that there is now a clear trend of slowing job growth in the American economy.

Businesses aren’t investing in capital equipment, either

The decline in companies’ willingness to invest in people is matched by its lack of interest in investing in new capital equipment. This type of investment is essential to increasing worker productivity, and it offers a key signal of corporate confidence in its ability to increase profits.

ISM data corroborates payroll weakness

The payroll data coming from the Census Bureau is not only warning sign we’re seeing. Data from the Institute for Supply Management released Friday showed the growth in the services sector slowing in May, with the employment component falling into contractionary territory.

Yellen likely felt the need to not spook markets with an overly dour speech on Monday. But make no mistake about it, economic data released over the past week is beginning to paint a much bleaker picture of the U.S. economy than what we were seeing even just a month ago.

Discussion
2 Comments
    Jun 07, 2016 07:33 PM

    Thanks Cory. That backs up my central thesis on the economy very nicely and is a nice addition to the post i left this morning on temporary help numbers. So odds are good we are going into recession and thus demand for almost all resources will be in decline. That fact will have a bearing on both precious metals unless they miraculously buck the trend and disconnect from the pack (a VERY unlikely event in my books).

    Gold and silver are almost dead money at current prices. They will fall back.

    Jun 08, 2016 08:23 AM

    The first sign is a general practical atheism.