This week

This week was pretty awful in terms of economic data.
Nonfarm payrolls were down 524,000 in December, pretty much right on the consensus view. They'd been down 584,000 in January. So bad. At least the decline is slowing? But half a million. Half a million new unemployed in December. Change in manufacturing payrolls was 149,000, up from a revised earlier number of 104,000 and really disappointing the survey, which averaged at -100,000. So I guess we can say manufacturing has been hit harder than the rest. Unemployment surprised on the upside at 7.2% (estimate was 7%, prior number was at 6.8%.) So yeah, the employment picture is not pretty.

Retail sales in December absolutely plummeted. Down -3.1%. Estimate was half that. So economic activity also is stalling pretty badly.

On the other hand, mortgage applications were up by 15% in the Jan 9th week. Up from -8.2%. That, to me, is very good news. That'll take a good while to filter through but I see it as the first step in stabilizing the housing market. And I see that as the first step to recovery. B/c, oh I dunno.... maybe someone like Citi wouldn't lose $8billion a quarter anymore.