Ian Shepherdson Drop Quotations

One steep drop in housing starts does not make a downward trend, especially in a month which was very wet in the West and very cold in the Northeast. Still, the data are consistent with other signs of a softening housing market, most notably the drop in homebuilders' confidence. What really matters, though, is whether sales will fall fast enough to turn a softening into a collapse.

July sales always looked unsustainably high relative to the level of mortgage applications so a correction was due. This drop in sales does not mark the start of a sustained weakening.

Just about everyone who buys a house uses a mortgage, so a sustained drop in mortgage demand tells you where home sales are going, regardless of the current sales data.

It is impossible to tell how much of the drop simply reflects the inability of the seasonal adjustment to cope with the end of the auto retooling shutdowns, and how much is due to the underlying trend,

With the fastest productivity growth and biggest drop in unit labor costs in seven years, the numbers are certainly worth shouting about, but as yet we are far from convinced that much of the improvement is structural. Mr. Greenspan is of the same view, which is why rates are going up no matter what happens to productivity growth.

We expect a big drop in September: Katrina has depressed sentiment and pushed up jobless claims.

The trend in claims has risen this year, in tandem with the clear drop in business confidence in the period before the war with Iraq. If claims are sustained at this level they will signal an acceleration in the rate of net job losses recorded in the payroll numbers.

It would be very helpful if the drop in confidence in June marked the start of a new trend, but with the job market still very tight we cannot yet be confident about this.

they strongly suggest that the trend in employment growth is slowing hard. A big drop in May payrolls may be in the cards.

The drop in stock prices is no excuse to beginning cutting rates, as some in the market desperately want to believe, ... Given where oil prices are and given what the fundamentals still suggest, I don't see the Fed doing anything for the time being.

We fully expect sentiment to drop sharply, putting in place the conditions for much softer consumer spending numbers.

A big headline drop was always in the cards after the weather-assisted surge in January, which hugely boosted retail activity.