Unemployment claims dropped more than expected, and the news report is that it is difficult to see the number as meaningful given that at this time of the year, there is a lot of “noise” in the employment area because of seasonal hiring and firing. Okee dokee …
As well, today the media is reporting the yin and yang of the housing market.
The number of people who bought previously owned homes last year fell to the lowest level in 13 years. But home sales in December jumped to fastest pace in seven months.
The above is interesting, particularly as December is the worst month of the year for real estate sales, historically. What on earth could drive up housing sales in December? Who cares? Why bother analyze that when the bad news itself is enough to get folks singing the tune.
BEIJING (Reuters) – China finished 2010 with a bang, its growth soaring past forecasts and inflation slowing less than expected, numbers that could prod the government to intensify its easy-does-it approach to tightening.
And what about that China slowdown that many told us throughout the past year would bring a slowdown to our own economy? I understand that what I am about to write will not happen, but wouldn’t it be nice if we stopped seeing the world in minute portions, if we turned our myopic view of events into a broader, more holistic world view? Wouldn’t it be nice if we stopped jumping around like mice on an electrically charged plate? Wouldn’t it be nice if our media provided more critical analysis and less sensationalism? Yeh, wouldn’t it be nice …
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., January 19, 2011— Businesses are moving to the cloud, at least as far as their IT spending is concerned. A new In-Stat report forecasts cloud computing and managed hosting spending by US Businesses will surpass $13 billion in 2014, up from less than 3 billion in 2010.
We are on our own, if we want to have a clearer picture of reality. Finding the above, for example, takes a bit of work. However, the work is worth it if you want to understand what is really happening underneath the thick layer of good and bad news bites. Now why would you want to do that? Well, if you are an investor, it behooves you to get past the myopic yin and yang of the moment and to get down to finding out where the money is going. It behooves you to see that the global economy is not falling apart, that investment is still happening, that businesses are still growing, that the economic cycle is just that, an economic cycle. It behooves you to understand that news such as the above points not only to those companies focused on cloud computing; it also points to companies that provide hardware/software (chips, routers, compression) that increases the necessary bandwidth for our move toward cloud computing, and everything else swallowing bandwidth these days. Oh yeh, and isn’t “behoove” a cool word?
Trade in the day; invest in your life …
