Total collapse. That is the only way to explain what just happened with the Chicago PMI which imploded from 52.4, and printed at a contractionary 49: the first sub-50 headline print since September 2009. But that's not all: Deliveries, Prices Paid and Production all hit their lowest since 2009; Backlogs posted their tenth month of contraction in the past 12 months. And what's worst for the Department of Making Shit Up, Employment plunged from 551. to 48.7, its third month over month decline. Actually another way to phrase it: complete disaster. Obviously this number explains why S&P should have no problems crossing 1,600 today. Because for that other Department: of Propaganda and Creating money out of thin air, this means only one thing: the Fed is preparing to print ONE KROOGOL MORE!
It appears nobody told the respondents that the economy is back in stall speed.
Business activity was soft again in March, but we are optimistic for 2nd quarter and overall for 2013. Seems like some key raw materials are forecasted to moderate and even decline a bit over next several months, e.g. linerboard, resins.
Our orders are consistent, we have a steady flow of work currently, 1st quarter was a huge improvement from 2012 start.
New order intake is steady but remains at the lowered 2012 level. Afraid this may become the dreaded "new normal".
"Business is steady as she goes."
The economy is looking as if it is turning the corner. It is slowly gaining and looks like it will continue to do so.
Full horrendous report here
Meanwhile, elsewhere in contradictory reports...
Consumer Confidence just smashed expectations to the upside by the most in 14 months...
Led - surprise - by hope and dreams of the future... at its highest in 5 months...
US Homeownership Rate Drops To 1995 Levels
When it comes to the US housing market there appear to be three groups of people: those who who have either unlimited cash and/or access to credit, and like the most rabid of bubble-chasing speculators, are perfectly happy to engage in a game of Flip That House for a short-term profit pending the discovery of a greater fool (often times converting the house into rental properties as numerous hedge funds have been doing on cost-free basis courtesy of the government's REO-To-Rent program) - they are the vast minority of speculators; then there are those who currently rent and are opportunistically looking at home prices, willing to dip their toe at the right price - these too are few and far between and mostly represent a function of the natural growth of the US household offset by the availability of jobs; and then there is everyone else. Sadly, it is the "everyone else" that is the vast majority of the US population.
It is this "everyone else" that is once again being forced out of housing due to both the ramping bubble in housing prices making housing affordable primarily to those who buy with the intention of flipping, and due to the lack of available credit to those who actually need it (see sad state of commercial bank loans in the US).
Finally, it is this "everyone else" who comprises the bulk of those who have been kicked out of the American Dream, whose core pillar has always been owning your own home (with or without a massive mortgage attached), not renting.
As the US Census Bureau reported earlier today, the US homeownership rates in the first quarter of 2013 dropped by another 0.4% to a fresh 18 years low, or 65% - the lowest since 1995!
That this progressive, ongoing decline in ownership is taking place despite allegedly record home affordability is without doubt the most troubling feature of the economic "recovery" which has forced ever more Americans to shift away from owning and into renting, as can be seen by the next two charts showing the median asking rent and sale prices for vacant rent units and for sale units. While home prices have a long way to go still countrywide (excluding the occasional regional bubble market such as LA and NY), rents are already at record highs, which explains why it is every hedge fund's dream to become a landlord.
However, it is only a matter of time before zero-cost subsidized rental pass thru units owned by hedge funds who can therefore keep the rental asking price as high as they wish, forces out more and more Americans out of the Adjusted American Dream, where renting is the new buying, and leads to ever more people living in the streets.
Although, we are confident, it will be merely a matter of time before this, or some other administration, simply unleashes a "street living tax" - after all, "it is only fair" to apply austerity to hobos next. Because it has worked so well with the billionaires and trillionaires...
Presenting: The Housing Bubble 2.0
It was just seven short years ago that the prices at the epicenter of the housing bubble, Los Angeles, CA rose by 50% every six months as the nation experienced its first parabolic move higher in home prices courtesy of Alan Greenspan's disastrous policies: a time when everyone knew intuitively the housing market was in an epic bubble, yet which nobody wanted to pop because there was just too much fun to be had chasing the bouncing ball, not to mention money. Well, courtesy of the real-time real estate pricing trackers at Altos Research, we now know that the very worst of the housing bubble is not only back, but it is at levels not seen since the days when a house in the Inland Empire was only a faint glimmer of the prototype for BitCoin.
