by Calculated Risk on 3/11/2011 02:39:00 PM

From Bloomberg: Portugal 5-Year Yield at Euro-Era Record on Bailout Speculation

When asked whether his country was preparing to request a bailout, Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira Dos Santos said European leaders must understand the “seriousness” of the region’s debt crisis.
...
The minister’s comments “might indicate that financial support for Portugal will be discussed at the weekend,” said Michael Leister, a fixed-income analyst at WestLB AG in Dusseldorf, Germany. “Yields show that the market is concerned, and is waiting for something,” he said.

Here are the 2 year, 5 year and 10 year Portuguese bond yields from Bloomberg. The 5 year yield is up to almost 8%, the 2 year yield is at 6.5%, up from 4.5% earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny are apparently asking for better terms.

Note: The Greek ten year yield is at 12.8%. The Irish ten year yield is 9.6%. Here are the Ten Year yields for Spain, and Belgium.

by Calculated Risk on 3/11/2011 11:41:00 AM

From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

There were 2.8 million job openings on the last business day of
January 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The
job openings rate (2.1 percent), hires rate (2.8 percent), and total
separations rate (2.7 percent) were little changed over the month.

The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Unfortunately this is a new series and only started in December 2000.

Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for January, the most recent employment report was for February.

Click on graph for larger image in graphics gallery.

Notice that hires (purple) and total separations (red and blue columns stacked) are pretty close each month. When the purple line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.

In January, about 3.555 million people lost (or left) their jobs, and 3.712 million were hired (this is the labor turnover in the economy) adding 157 thousand total jobs.

In general job openings (yellow) has been trending up - and are up 15% from January 2010 - although openings have declined over the last two months.

The overall turnover remains low with a record low number of "quits" in January. There has been little pickup in hiring over the last 18 months - just a decline in "quits" and total separations.

by Calculated Risk on 3/11/2011 09:55:00 AM

The preliminary March Reuters / University of Michigan consumer sentiment index declined to 68.2 from 77.5 in February, the lowest level since October 2010.

Click on graph for larger image in graphic gallery.

This was well below the consensus forecast of 76.5.

In general consumer sentiment is a coincident indicator and is usually impacted by employment (and the unemployment rate) and gasoline prices.

My initial guess is this decline was because of higher gasoline prices.

by Calculated Risk on 3/11/2011 08:30:00 AM

On a monthly basis, retail sales increased 1.0% from January to February(seasonally adjusted, after revisions), and sales were up 8.9% from February 2010. The December 2010 to January 2011 percent change was revised from +0.3% to +0.7%.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows retail sales since 1992. This is monthly retail sales, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline).

Retail sales are up 15.3% from the bottom, and now 1.9% above the pre-recession peak.


The second graph shows the year-over-year change in retail sales (ex-gasoline) since 1993.

Retail sales ex-gasoline increased by 8.0% on a YoY basis (8.9% for all retail sales).

Here is the Census Bureau report:

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for February, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $387.1 billion, an increase of 1.0 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month, and 8.9 percent (±0.7%)above February 2010. ... The December 2010 to January 2011 percent change was revised from +0.3 percent (±0.5%)* to +0.7 percent (±0.3%).

This was at expectations for a 1.0% increase. Retail sales ex-autos were up 0.7%; also at expectations of a 0.7% increase. Including the upward revision to January retail sales, this was a solid report.

by Calculated Risk on 3/10/2011 08:58:00 PM

• The Libya situation is grim.

From the NY Times: U.S. Escalates Pressure on Libya Amid Mixed Signals

From the WSJ: Gadhafi Forces Escalate Attacks

• Friday is the so-called "Day of Rage" in Saudi Arabia

From Reuters: Shooting and injuries before Saudi day of protest

Saudi police fired in the air to disperse protesting Shi'ites and three people were injured on the eve of a day of protests called for Friday by activists using the Internet.

Protests were planned in other Gulf countries such as Yemen, Kuwait and Bahrain.

U.S. WTI oil prices fell slightly to $102.75 today.

• European Financial Crisis

From Bloomberg: Spain's Rating Downgraded to Aa2 by Moody's Over Bank Cost Concerns

From the Financial Times: Eurozone leaders to meet on stabilisation pact. Not much is expected at this meeting - this was a prelude to the meeting of all 27 EU leaders in Brussels on March 24th and 25th.

• House Prices declined 2.5% in January, Prices at New Post-bubble low, see Graph here

• Trade Deficit increased in January to $46.3 billion, see Graph here

• Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increase to 397,000, see Graph here.

• Q4 Flow of Funds: Household Real Estate assets off $6.3 trillion from peak