If we hadn’t heard from Greenspan last week that the Fed is still worried about an uneven recovery, we might be more upset about these numbers. But Greenspan is concerned that these retail sales numbers...

So core inflation is still rising slightly but doesn’t appear to be a problem, and I think this is good news for the Federal Reserve . With energy prices declining it reduces the risk that...

Growth is still at a healthy level. There is no major slowdown.

We’re still getting some mixed data because of the impact of the hurricanes, but the underlying economy still looks healthy, … So I don’t think today’s data change the Fed’s thinking about raising interest rates.

Fewer people are worried about jobs right now, more people think that jobs are easy to get, and I think that’s supporting confidence despite the high energy prices.

If unemployment continues to decline and the economy grows at an above-average pace … I think they (the Fed) will be a little more concerned about bottlenecks.

It suggests our manufacturers are adjusting to a new environment and will continue to grow, … I think we have (already) seen the worst for manufacturing.

If sales can be sustained at this level, that would help support housing construction, but inventory of new homes is still increasing. The housing market is cooling off, but not dropping sharply.

It suggests the drag on the economy from the trade deficit in the third quarter will not be as great and could help revise up third-quarter GDP a bit,

It looks like the economy is still quite healthy and the Fed is probably following the appropriate course. The economy doesn’t need low interest rates.

Yields have risen to levels where buyers looking for yields are willing to take a risk and buy.

We’re in the range between 50 and 55 (in the ISM index) where the Fed often holds interest rates steady, and with Hurricane Katrina likely impacting the economy, particularly in the South, in September, we...

If we’d had a substantial decline in the dollar against the Chinese currency we’d have probably seen a substantial rise in the price of some of the items that we buy from China.

We’re not seeing a lot of strength in goods and services right now. Sales are mixed. Some categories are doing OK and others are weak. We’re not seeing an outright decline.

I think the headline number is a bit misleading. It doesn’t suggest that the economy is in trouble. Consumer durables production is looking solid, so it’s looking like there’s still going to be strong first...

It shows the world central banks recognize the financial markets could use a little extra liquidity and support. Hopefully it will help restore confidence. A lot of people expected we would see some sort of...

But it looks like Mr. Greenspan is saying the slowdown in the economy will be short-lived and that suggests that the Fed will probably continue to raise rates.

We’ve been seeing improvement in the non-manufacturing side since late last year. We’re seeing more activity in the travel sector and others that were hit really hard last year after the terror attacks.

It does show consumers are in a buying mood,

We have the potential for that.

We’re still in a seasonally weak period of year, where companies are trimming workforces. It weighs on people’s minds when they hear about companies cutting back.

Overall, confidence is still at a healthy level, up from where it was a year ago, but we did pull back a bit from the three-year high that we saw in June.

I wouldn’t disagree with some of the things he said, but I don’t know why he said those particular things at this time.

The weakness was primarily in the residential area. That’s consistent with the other data we’ve seen recently that suggest that the housing market is cooling off.

The Fed will overlook the strength in the economy before Katrina and focus more on getting the economy back on its feet and probably will hold policy steady until we see how the economy is...

We did see a big recovery in (producer) prices, but that was primarily in energy. Core prices increased only modestly and that’s good news for the Fed.

The PPI numbers generally have been running higher than the CPI numbers, showing that the higher production costs are not being passed on.

Productivity numbers on a quarter-to-quarter basis are very volatile. The downwardly revised second-quarter numbers could easily be revised upward in the third quarter.

Looking back, it is understandable why the Australian and New Zealand currencies peaked in early 2005. That was about the same time that the demand for crude oil also started to moderate.

It shows that consumers are feeling poorly about the economy, similar to what we’ve see in other recessions. Confidence is not as low as it was in the recessions of the early 1990s and early...

We think the economy is poised to slow down and that’s good news for the Federal Reserve.

We probably won’t see good (employment) numbers in the next couple of months because of the loss of jobs in the Gulf Coast region,

The Fed may be looking at oil prices as a reason for the economy to falter and not a reason for it to overheat, so they won’t want to raise rates yet,

The upturn in confidence is an encouraging sign that economic conditions are stabilizing after the hurricanes. Lower energy prices are helping, but the upturn in employment is also a plus.

It’s still a good reading overall, but not quite as robust as we’ve seen in the last several months. The encouraging thing is that the employment component increased again. We are beginning to see businesses...

The jobless claims drop shows good strength in the labor market at the end of the year. It shows that the economy has recovered after the hurricanes and is heading into the new year with...

We got good news on inflation. People anticipate that with inflation still very low, the Fed will stay on hold for awhile.

We were anticipating that we could see a little bit of an improvement in October because the rebuilding after the hurricanes appears to have started and energy prices have stabilized, but it appears that it...

The (February) manufacturing report was a little better than expected, showing continued growth in manufacturing.

With the focus on the Federal Reserve, the PPI is probably more important to the market.

The big number is the employment number on Friday. If that number comes in weak for the third consecutive month, views on the Fed are likely to change significantly.

It speeds up the time that the Fed will probably think about raising rates and that’s negative for fixed-income.

He’s mentioning that the dollar should stay firm and that’s been a good factor for our economy. He’s been concerned for some time about foreign investors wanting to keep their money here and if we...

The Fed will probably not put a lot of emphasis on this data and instead will be looking more at the economy after the hurricane.

The employment component was just a tad lower than what we saw in November so it’s still a healthy number.

It looks like the economy is stabilizing after the hurricane-related stresses and we’re heading into the holidays with an upturn in confidence that is encouraging and bodes well for the good consumer spending over the...

It’s a good number for the economy. Labor markets are improving, and that increases the likelihood that the economy will remain strong.

The Philadelphia Fed business outlook index is still above zero in January, pointing to expansion, but the expansion is not quite as broad.

It probably doesn’t mean we don’t see another rate increase, but it suggests that the Fed is not behind the curve and inflation is not getting out of control.

It’s a little softer than expected, but it’s not all bad news.