Morning Journal - Why small businesses aren't hiring

Economics
This Week’s Data

January industrial production came in flat with December versus expectations of a 0.7% increase--the shortfall occurred mainly in utilities (warm winter); capacity utilization was 78.5 versus forecasts of 78.7.
http://www.capitalspectator.com/archives/2012/02/industrial_prod_1.html#more

Weekly jobless claims fell 10,000 versus estimates of a 6,000 rise.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/02/weekly-initial-unemployment-claims_16.html

January housing starts jumped 6.3% versus forecasts of a 2.7% advance; however, building permits dropped over 0.1% versus an anticipated increase of 1.3%. These numbers were likely influenced by the warm winter weather.


The January producer price index rose only 0.1% versus expectations of up 0.4%; core PPI advanced 0.4% versus estimates of up 0.2%.

Other

The US economy is improving (medium):
http://scottgrannis.blogspot.com/2012/02/us-economy-is-definitely-picking-up.html

Why small businesses aren’t hiring (short):
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2012/02/15/85-of-small-businesses-not-looking-to-hire-heres-why/

What does declining gasoline consumption mean (medium):
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/what-does-declining-gasoline-consumption-mean/#more-75957

The Fed, the dollar and inflation (medium):
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/federal-reserve-and-big-banks-are-going-to-crush-the-dollar-%E2%80%A6-and-american-savers/

Politics

Domestic

Charles Biderman on Obama’s (fantasy) budget (4 minute video):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/biderman-beyond-baffled-bos-budget

And this analysis of both current and projected entitlement spending (medium):
http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Taxes-Entitlements-and-Federal-Debt.php

Steve Cook received his education in investments from Harvard, where he earned an MBA, New York University, where he did post graduate work in economics and financial analysis and the CFA Institute, where he earned the Chartered Financial Analysts designation in 1973. His 40 years of investment experience includes institutional portfolio management at Scudder, Stevens and Clark and Bear Stearns. Steve's goal at Strategic Stock Investments is to help other investors build wealth and benefit from the investing lessons he learned the hard way.