I first noted that outbound container traffic was a good leading indicator of goods exports in an April 2009 post. Container traffic data comes out in a much timelier fashion than goods exports, and it turned up months before we learned that exports had indeed started to recover; that proved to be an excellent end-of-recession indicator. With today's release of November container traffic data from the Port of Los Angeles—up 15% from a year ago—it looks like goods exports are still enjoying robust growth. That's excellent news for the U.S. economy, and it also suggests that the economies of our trading partners are improving as well.
Well, following Scott's belief that the world is not ending as we know it, I took the plunge and ordered a new car today after driving mine for over 10 years. I hope he's right.
ReplyDeleteThank you, on behalf of the economy ;~)
ReplyDeleteYou have to be very careful citing POLA import/export stats these days. One of the larger carriers in the Port of Long Beach recently jumped ship from POLB to POLA a couple months ago, skewing stats for both ports. It's best to look at combined data for the two ports or, better yet, wait until later in the month until all west coast port data is in:
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This article could have been more informative had it not selectively chosen only positive (but distorted) news. For example:
ReplyDelete"Long Beach’s volume year-to-date (through November), without factoring in CUT’s business (which moved to LA and so inflated reported container movements there), show imports down 3.3 percent, exports down 4.1 percent and total container volume down 3.5 percent."
CPI reading out out today, no inflation, after last month's decline.
ReplyDeleteWhy we are targeting zero inflation when the US economy is 13 percent below trend is beyond me.
Ben Bernanke, instead of advising the Japanese, appears to be taking advice from them.
Cheap dollar is helping exports. Oh that.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone cares, I have a post up at market monetarist.com, a nice blog.
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