ECONOMICS

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The latest OPEC meeting conclusions show that the global economy is not as strong as headlines suggest and that industries all over the world are struggling to recover. Indeed, many manufacturing PMIs (purchasing managers’ indexes) continue to signal contraction.

Oil prices have weakened in recent weeks despite the war in Gaza and rising geopolitical risk. At the close of this article, Brent is trading at $81.62 per barrel and WTI at (more…)

By Nate Delesline of RetailDive

Vasos said self checkout will remain in a limited number of higher volume stores. He added that the shift away from self checkout will drive increased customer engagement and should position the company to begin reducing "shrink", aka theft, in the second half of 2024 with a material impact expected in 2025.

"Shrink continues to be the most significant headwind in our business," Vasos said, addressing soaring retail theft. (more…)

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Domestic Income (GDI) are two measures of the same thing. But the difference is now over two percentage points, the third largest in history.

GDP and GDI data from BEA, calculation and chart by Mish

Discrepancy Notes

• When GDP is greater than GDI the numbers are positive. When GDI is greater than GDP the numbers are negative.

• Last quarter the discrepancy was 2.3 percentage (more…)