Anthony Chan Month Quotations

We may want to wait for another month or so to be sure that such gains were truly reflective of a upward trend and not just a possible distortion arising from the temporary 'hurricane-related' loss of many lower-paying service sector jobs,

When one looks at the MBA data that reveal that applications for the purchases of new homes are down 7.5 percent on a year-over-year basis, it is not hard to see that the gain reported this month is not a sustainable trend.

We will eventually see the negative impact of rising rates -- we can't dodge that bullet -- but doesn't usually happen at the beginning of the cycle. I'm not sure we will continue to see the market beating expectations by these margins, but I don't see the market collapsing in the next month or so.

Even though the gains this month are in fact indicative of a sustainable economic expansion, the magnitude of the gain was a bit exaggerated.

Rates might be low, but people are starting to realize that rates will go up. Remember you've got to get a mortgage down the line, maybe six months out when the home is complete. People are preparing for it.

For the moment the third quarter is probably going to be similar to what we saw the last three months -- probably between 250,000 to 300,000 new jobs every month,

The best way to read the numbers is going to be to average the two months' data because the hurricanes are distorting the wider picture, ... But excluding the hurricane effects, we're doing 190,000 to 200,000 new jobs a month and that's quite healthy.

It's unreasonable to expect that the information we have so far could justify another cut right now. We need to see more evidence the economy is headed for much slower growth in the months ahead.

The two months of favorable data allow us to start connecting the dots. It gives us a picture of a rapidly improving labor market. I think we can categorically say we have seen a sea change in labor market environment at this time.

Usually the devil is in the details. With this report, the greatest fear is that details of true labor market conditions will be found over the next couple of months instead of in this report.

This is an exciting number, but it was warmer in November than usual. The warm weather is the equivalent of zero-percent financing on automobile sales. You're going to see this work itself off in months to come.

Many economists will end up eating humble pie this weekend because, while the relationship between the weekly initial unemployment claims and non-farm payrolls is fairly robust, we should also realize that it is not always a stable relationship from month to month.

The jump in payrolls this month shows that although the economy clearly went through a wider-than-expected soft patch, it does not appear as though the shortfall in growth was permanent,

One month doesn't make a story. But it's certainly very encouraging, especially with the market worried about inflation.

Although today's employment report provides little evidence of anything resembling a double-dip recovery, it does provide stronger support for the onset of a gradual to a moderate recovery in the months ahead.

It reflects some loss of momentum from January. Activity in January was a bit too euphoric given the underlying economic fundamentals. This month is more realistic.

Continuity is all but assured. The Fed has worked hard to win credibility and Greenspan is not going to throw it away in the final few months of his term.

There's a huge hurricane hangover. I think the government will have to trip over itself to decide whether to have a huge downward revision to last month or whether the job losses will take a bigger hit this month.