Thoughts

My time series analysis programs are in pieces on the kitchen floor -- I'm rewriting them, and since they all use common subroutines and functions, they're pretty much all unusable right now.  So I can't extreme-adjust series, or seasonally adjust them or fit moving averages or calculate diffusion indices.  No matter, they'll be fixed soon (that's what I thought last week!)

So some thoughts on recent data releases (impressions because I need to inspect the data properly, and I can't just yet) :

• US retail sales -- strong.  The US recovery is finally self-sustaining.
• Europe data -- I had very pessimistic views on the euro area and in some cases numbers are a little better than I thought.  But not much.
• Time for China to reflate.  They've started; they need to do more.  Longer-term, the Chinese need to do some work to re-engineer the growth engines of their economy.  They are, but that could make for a bumpy ride.
• India starting to reflate (about time)
• Brazil now at the low.  
• The US market (i.e., the share market) punched straight through previous resistance -- it's heading for the all time high.  When it's gets there, I'll prolly be a seller.
• The Ozzie All Ords has formed a wedge with a flat top and a rising bottom.  This kind of wedge usually breaks out on the upside.  Once again, I'll prolly sell when it reaches the highs of last year.
• Commodity prices have resumed their uptrend.

Longer-term, we still have to deal with too much debt.  And that will take a decade or more, and maybe longer if European pollies are stupid about it.  And oil is going to be a major problem one of these days (more later on this)