Anthony Chan Gain Quotations

When we see a change in payrolls that is dominated by a glitch in the seasonal factor, no change in average hourly earnings and only a small gain in the length in the average workweek, we know that the message is encouraging but not exhilarating,

While an economy is limping during the earliest or first stage of an expansion -- this is where we are -- the ability to pass on the effects of higher input prices like energy is quite limited. But as soon as the economy begins to gain traction, more of these prices can be passed on.

The outsized gain in housing starts was influenced by the same variable dominating most of the other headline stats like the retail sales and industrial production, namely weather. Everyone knows that housing starts is a volatile number that generally reports wide swings.

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.

The rise in the unemployment rate takes much of the sting away from the robust gain in payrolls from a monetary policy perspective. The big fear ahead of the release of this report was that labor markets were overheating.

The much stronger-than-expected durable goods number is significant because it comes on the heels of a sizable gain the previous month,

Although the gain in real GDP came in somewhat below market expectations, the details of the report were much more favorable,

You typically see, from the trough of a recession to the time when the recession ends, a 1.3-percent gain in payrolls, ... From when the recession likely ended, in December of last year, we've had 0.004 percent gain, instead of that 1.3 percent gain. There's a pent-up demand for labor, given such a jobless recovery.