Tim Iacono's Blog

Given the dearth of officially reported consumer price inflation in recent years, don’t look for this to be a major topic today when new Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen appears before the House Financial Services Committee in the first of two appearances on Capitol Hill this week to present the central bank’s semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress.

The Institute for Supply Management reported that U.S. manufacturing growth saw its sharpest slowdown in almost three years as national factory activity fell from 56.5 in December to 51.3 in January, the lowest level since last May.

Earlier yesterday, the Conference Board reported that consumer confidence rose again this month, up from a downwardly revised 77.5 in December to 80.7 in January, as the current conditions index rose to the highest reading of the recovery, up 3.8 points to 79.1.

A couple of sets of brand new poll results from Gallup show how increasingly difficult it has become for Americans to achieve any real financial security — for the first time since 2012 they are now worse off financially than a year ago and they still think stocks are a bad idea.

Standard & Poor’s reported that U.S. home prices continued to rise in October, despite the ongoing seasonal slowdown that is clear to see in the unadjusted data below.

For a data series such as this, it’s important to remember that Americans often say and do two completely different things...

The Commerce Department reported that retail sales fell 0.1 percent in September after a gain of 0.2 percent in August as a sharp decline in auto sales more than offset other gains. Excluding autos, sales rose 0.4 percent after a gain of 0.1 percent the month prior.

Granted, there weren’t a whole lot of data points available to assemble the graphic below from this item at Gallup, but the trend of the chart is consistent with how many Americans feel about the changing nature of economic opportunity in the U.S.

The Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls came in well below expectations last month, up just 148,000 in September as compared to the consensus estimate of 185,000, and the unemployment rate fell from 7.3 percent to 7.2 percent...

CNBC personality Rick Santelli shares some thoughts about raising the debt ceiling that were offered up on Capitol Hill back in March 2006 by a freshman Senator from Illinois.