Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT – Feb 14 2023

Mattel, home to Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, posted fourth-quarter sales 22 percent below those of a year earlier as holiday sales stalled, the company said.

During the zero interest rate and low mortgage rate COVID era’s housing boom, companies known as “power buyers” were flying high.

The U.S. services economy is much stronger now that consumers have satiated their appetite for goods during the COVID War.

Yes, the U.S. economy is doing great!

Inflation still high, wage growth sagging, and a country that was once called the Land of Opportunity has diminished to a country in which just 11 percent of its Gross Domestic Product comes from goods they manufacture.

Demand for gold bars and coins in Russia last year shot up 400 percent, a greater increase than in any other country, after it invaded Ukraine and Western sanctions battered Russia’s economy.

U.S. interest rates are likely to rise higher than markets have predicted, U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said in a 7 February comment at a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington, his first statement since the Fed raised its key rate by a quarter point the week before.