Great January Economic Summary

From Calculated Risk: January Economic Summary in Graphs
1. New Home Sales in December
2. Housing Starts in December
3. Construction Spending in November
4. Strip Mall Vacancy Rate
5. December Employment Report
6. December Retail Sales
7. LA Port Traffic in December
8. December Capacity Utilization
9.Vehicle Sales
10. NAHB Builder Confidence in January
11. Architecture Billings Index for December
12. Vehicle Miles Driven in November
13. Existing Home Sales in December
14. Existing Home Inventory
15. Case Shiller House Prices for November
16. California Notices of Default
17. ATA Truck Tonnage Index
18. Unemployment Claims
19. Restaurant Performance Index for December
20. New Home Sales

Weekend Picture Post

Existing Home Sales Increase in December

From Calculated Risk: Existing Home Sales Increase in December
From Calculated Risk: Existing Home Sales (NSA)
From Calculated Risk: Annual Existing Home Sales
From Big Picture: Existing Home Sales Fell 13.1% for 2008

Readings for the Day

From Big Picture: Worst Dow Drop Since Election Meant Rally in '33
From Big Picture: Fed Balance Sheet Decaying
From Big Picture: 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Heat Map
From Big Picture: Paul Volcker / Group of 30 Report on Reform

Should We Nationalize Our Banks Now?

From Big Picture: Nationalize Now!

Leading Economic Indicator Up

From Big Picture: Fed Activity Boosts Leading Economic Indicators:

Leading economic indicators (LEI) index rose 0.3% month over month in December. However:

Stock Prices, Jobless Claims, Pace of Deliveries, Average Work Week, and Building Permits were all negative. Consumer Goods Orders, Non-defense Cap Goods Orders, and Consumer Expectations were all essentially flat.

Coincident-to-lagging index fell; The coincident to lagging index, which tends to have a stronger correlation with GDP growth, conversely fell 0.1% over the month to stand 4.7% lower year-over year.

The surge in real money supply growth added a full percentage point to the headline number. From September till today, this has added between 0.4ppts and 1.0ppts to each month’s gain. The artificial boost to the LEIs has not translated into increased lending from the banks.

How bad are tech earnings?

From the Big Picture: How Bad Are Tech Earnings?

1. PC DEMAND IS SUFFERING big time. Microsoft and Intel are both cutting jobs; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) posted a 33% drop in profits; Disk-drive maker Seagate ’s (STX) revenues were down 34%; Logitech (LOGI), reported a March-quarter miss.

2. MOBILE-PHONE SALES are in trouble. Nokia (NOK) reported a 19.5% Q4 revenue decline; Warnings were already out from Motorola (MOT) and Sony Ericsson;

3. CONSUMER-ELECTRONICS demand is non-existent. Sony (SNE) expects a loss for its March 2009 fiscal year. GPS device maker TomTom (TOM2.AE) issued an earnings warning; and Foxconn International (2038.HK)

4. THE CHIP BUSINESS CONTINUES to erode. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) reported a 31% Q4 earnings decline. MEMC Electronic Materials(WFR) sees March-quarter revenues down 50%; Marvell (MRVL) sharply reduced its Q4 guidance.

5. EVEN THE GOOD EARNINGS REPORTS aren’t so good. IBM’s Q4 revenues actually missed by more than $1 billion, dropping 6%, and their full-year profits reflect cost cutting, not top-line growth. Apple (AAPL) exceeded both top line and perofit expectations, but iPhone sales disappointed, falling 36% from Q3; desktop Mac sales were weak, and Apple same-store sales were down from last year. Google (GOOG) beat estimates, but concerns as the ad market continues to soften.

Layoff Today

1. Texas Instrument: 12% = 3,400 jobs
2. IBM: 2,800 jobs
3. Caterpillar: 20,000
4. Sprint: 8,000
5. Pfizer: 19,000 = 10%, does not include merge with Wyeth
6. Home Depot: 7,000
7. Phillips: 6,000

Bloomberg reports 74,000 job cuts today alone. Before today, at least 15 companies announced they planned to eliminate 93,000 positions so far in January.

Banking Fears

From Calculated Risk: MPs Urge Nationalize of RBS
From Calculated Risk: State Street and Regions Financial
From Calculated Risk: Roubini: U.S. Credit Losses May Reach 3.6 Trillions
From Calculated Risk: Bank of England to Start Buying Assets, Germany Bails Out Hypo - Again
From Calculated Risk: Big Bank Cliff Diving
From Calculated Risk: Bad CRE Loans Threaten Regional Banks
From Calculated Risk: More on New UK Bank Bailout
From Calculated Risk: The Next Step for the U.S. Bank Bailout
From Calculated Risk: Assistance to BAC
From Calculated Risk: JPM Earnings Call Notes

Housing Data Wrap Up

From Calculated Risk: Housing Starts at All-time low
From Calculated Risk: Architecture Billings Index Near Record Low
From Calculated Risk: NAHB Housing Market Index Falls to New Record Low
From Calculated Risk: National Association of Home Builders: Prices to Fall 29% in 2009
From Calculated Risk: Apartment market Weakens Further

U.S. Vehicle Miles Driven Falls Sharply

From Calculated Risk: DOT: U.S. Vehicle Miles Driven Falls Sharply

Travel on all roads and streets changed by -5.3% (-12.9 billion vehicle miles) for November 2008 as compared with November 2007. Travel for the month is estimated to be 230.4 billion vehicle miles. Cumulative Travel for 2008 changed by -3.7% (-102.1 billion vehicle miles). The Cumulative estimate for the year is 2,656.2 billion vehicle miles of travel.

So far the slowing economy is more than offsetting the sharp decline in gasoline prices last year. As the demand falls, oil price might fall more also the oil companies.

From CNBC: Take your positions: Energy Earnings

Next week calendar

Earnings:

Monday: American Express, Caterpillar, McDonald's, Netflix, Texas Instrument
Tuesday: Altera, DuPont, Etrade, Sun Micro, Yahoo
Wednesday: AT&T, Conoco Phillips, Intersil, Lam Research, LeCroy, LSI, Canon, Pfizer, Starbucks, Symantec, Wells Fargo
Thursday: 3M, Altria, Broadcom, Fairchild, Ford, JetBlue, KLA-Tencor, Maxim, Microchip, National Instruments, Sony, T.Rowe Price, US Airways
Friday: Chevron, ExxonMobil, Honda, Honeywell, P&G,

Economic Calendar:

Monday: Existing Home Sales, Leading Indicators
Tuesday: S&P Case-Shiller, Consumer Confidence
Wednesday: FOMC Meeting Announcement
Thursday: Durable Goods Order, Jobless Claims, New Home Sales
Friday: GDP, Employment Cost Index, NAPM-Chicago, Consumer Sentiment