Tausi Insider

People shop at a mall in Arcadia, Calif., on Nov. 25. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images U.S. retail sales fell more than expected in November, but consumer spending remains supported by a tight labour market, with the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits decreasing by the most in five months last week. The biggest decrease in retail sales in 11 months reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday was likely payback after sales surged in October as Americans started their holiday shopping early to take advantage of discounts by businesses desperate to clear excess inventory. Economists also noted that goods prices tumbled in November, which could have weighed on retail sales last month. The discounts by retailers were also probably a drag on the dollar value of sales. Retail sales are mostly goods and are not adjusted for inflation. “It is hard to know at this point if the November weakness represented a fundamental change in the trend or reflected some inevitable c...

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said on Friday it remains possible the U.S. central bank raises interest rates more than it currently expects next year, adding that he’s not expecting the economy to fall into recession as Fed policy-makers press forward with action to tame unacceptably high inflation. “We’re going to have to do what’s necessary” to get inflation back to the Fed’s 2 per cent target, Mr. Williams said in an interview on Bloomberg’s television channel. He said monetary policy will need to become restrictive and the peak federal funds rate next year, which Fed policy-makers projected this week at 5.1 per cent, “could be higher than what we’ve written down.” Mr. Williams, who is also vice-chair of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, noted that “inflation has been stubbornly high … and we’ve seen the economy remain very resilient to higher interest rates.” But when it comes to some Wall Street forecasts that argue the Fed may need to go as high...

Stacked containers as ships unload their cargo at the Port of Los Angeles, on Nov. 22, 2021. MIKE BLAKE/Reuters Glen Calder expected a shipment of gearbox reducers needed to build a particular model of his company’s paving machines last week. But when he called on Thursday to check the status of the order, he learned the shipment – coming from Italy – is now delayed three months. “No explanation, no excuse, no nothing,” fumed Mr. Calder, vice president of operations for Calder Brothers Corp., an 80-employee manufacturer in Taylors, South Carolina. Mr. Calder said his factory was already cutting steel for the machines that require the Italian parts and would now have to scramble to produce something else. Orders for those machines, already delayed, will go unfilled for now. Supply chain problems dogged producers like Mr. Calder through the pandemic. At the peak of the crisis a year ago, manufacturers faced shortages of everything from steel and aluminum to computer chips and plastic r...