Ian Shepherdson Worst Quotations

Our measure of core sales, which excludes autos, gas and food, rose a pitiful 0.1 percent, the worst performance since April and impossible to square with Mr. Greenspan's assertion last week that the economy is regaining traction,

We think there is a good chance that home sales recover, or at worst stabilize, over the next few months. The starts data are potentially seriously misleading.

As the newspapers remind us every day, job layoffs are still high, but the point is that they now appear to be slowing, ... The worst is over, and the decline in output and employment will soon slow.

At last some good -- or at least not so bad -- news, ... don't change the overall trade picture, but we think the worst news is over.

It is still too early to call the end of the manufacturing slump because the stability of July output might be little more than a seasonal effect, ... this report probably means the worst is over.

Claims have now been essentially static for three months, so even if the latest declines turn out to be unsustainable, the data will still show that the trend is no longer rising rapidly, and may not be rising at all, ... It looks like the worst of the worst is now over in the labor market.