American economy Tanking fast, Government Anti Business
Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 7:36 am
In no particular order, some snippets from the IBD tonight:
1. January new-home sales dropped 10.2% to an annualized rate of 309,000. You have to unwind the clock clear back to 1963 to see the new-home sales rate this low.
2. Durable goods sales in January dropped 5.2% vs. Decemeber, and are down 26.4% from January 2008.
3. New jobless claims are at 667,000, a 26-year high.
4. Ongoing jobless claims hit 5 million for the first time since WWII.
All reported figures are worse than economists' expectations.
5. The FDIC now sees 252 "Problem banks." Taken together, they have $159 billion in assets deemed to be "of high risk failure," and this is up 47% from Q3/2008 and more than three times as high as a year ago. If even half this amount of assets need to be backstopped by the FDIC, the FDIC will have to get more money from Congress.
6. The Obama administration's proposals for health care torpedoed the sector today, especially health insurers and managed care companies, but also drug & biotech companies. Since this came as a surprise, the selling in the sector was rather strong. Since this sector is considered one of the two "recession resistant" sector plays (one is consumer staples, the other health care/drugs/biotech) and these sectors are overweight in many portfolios now, the market will likely assess whether to rotate out completely or simply sell off down to "in line" sector allocations.
1. January new-home sales dropped 10.2% to an annualized rate of 309,000. You have to unwind the clock clear back to 1963 to see the new-home sales rate this low.
2. Durable goods sales in January dropped 5.2% vs. Decemeber, and are down 26.4% from January 2008.
3. New jobless claims are at 667,000, a 26-year high.
4. Ongoing jobless claims hit 5 million for the first time since WWII.
All reported figures are worse than economists' expectations.
5. The FDIC now sees 252 "Problem banks." Taken together, they have $159 billion in assets deemed to be "of high risk failure," and this is up 47% from Q3/2008 and more than three times as high as a year ago. If even half this amount of assets need to be backstopped by the FDIC, the FDIC will have to get more money from Congress.
6. The Obama administration's proposals for health care torpedoed the sector today, especially health insurers and managed care companies, but also drug & biotech companies. Since this came as a surprise, the selling in the sector was rather strong. Since this sector is considered one of the two "recession resistant" sector plays (one is consumer staples, the other health care/drugs/biotech) and these sectors are overweight in many portfolios now, the market will likely assess whether to rotate out completely or simply sell off down to "in line" sector allocations.