The stock market, after stalling at the 50-day moving average, has moved up, although the volume that is driving this move has diminished, making the rally once again suspect.

Regardless, the S&P 500 now stands at 1145.58, a little more than 4 points off of the January peak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average stands at 10 567.33, some 163 points off of the peak. Stocks have indeed managed to creep up, in spite of the fact that the time it has took to recover from trough back to the peak is 23 trading days and counting, the longest since the March 2009 low.

Below is the chart of the market over the year, showing the entire span of the rally, plus the month and a half since the January peak:

Today is March 10, 2010. Not only is it the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the rally, it is the tenth anniversary of the peak of the Nasdaq Composite index's peak on March 10, 2000. Back then the Nasdaq stood at 5049, and over the ensuing three years, fell to 1100. It recovered to nearly 3000 by 2008, only to fall again to 1300 by 2009, and to crawl back to 2300 by now.

Below is a 10-year chart, showing the entire crash and recovery:

The recovery of the Nasdaq is very reminiscent of the recovery from 1929-1939, and it has a solid foundation for continued recovery. This will, like the aftermath of the 1929 crash, take about 10 years more to recover to the peak of 5049.

After the nearly 10 percent downturn which the stock market suffered through early February, the major averages have managed to creep up somewhat. The reason for this is twofold:

1. A dead-cat bounce off of the lows
2. Better-looking economic data

Part 1 needs no further explanation. Part 2 does, however, since this is an economic report.

First of all, the US goverrnment reported that GDP in the fourth quarter of 2009 was up by 5.7 percent at a real annualized rate. On the surface this looks like good news, and it ordinarily would be. However, the government typically underestimates the rate of inflation by 2.7 percentage points (you can see the reason for this in earlier reports).

In addition to this, economists estimate that two-thirds of the growth that was reported was due to a buildup in inventories. While it may be a defined component of gross domestic product, a buildup in inventories does not make any difference when it comes to growth in economic activity.

Two-thirds of 5.7 percent is 3.8 percent. If this is added to the inflation underestimate, this yields 6.5 percentage points to subtract  from the 5.7 percent. This adjusted figure is a contraction of 0.8 percent. Even if you do not subtract the inventory component, it still comes out to an expansion of 3.0 percent, after a contraction of 0.5 percent in the third quarter, which is not a very robust recovery, if it is a recovery at all.

Also consider this -- the inventory buildup may not continue beyond the Christmas shopping season, and it may work in the reverse in the first quarter, and become a drag on GDP. Also, the 5.7 percent figure may, as the third quarter figure was, be revised downwards.

A buildup in inventories does not constitute an economic recovery by any definition, and until there is a sustained and real expansion in economic activity, the US economy is still in the same downturn it has been in ever since 2007.

Meanwhile, there is good news on the employment front. In January 2010, the seasonally-adjusted U3 unemployment rate decreased to 9.7 percent from 10.0 percent. This is good news, except when it is considered that U3 excludes the discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons.

When these two groups are included, which they are in the U6 rate, the rate now stands at 16.5 percent. This is a major improvement from 17.3 in December. However, this is a seasonally adjusted rate, which only tells part of the story. The U6 rate, not seasonally adjusted, was 18.0 percent, up from 17.3 in December. This is probably due to the firing of holiday workers, but nevertheless it should be watched closely in the coming months.

If this downward trend continues, it will mean better news for the economy.

Meanwhile, we must not forget the stock market. When we left the market last month, it was in a crash mode. Earlier this month the Dow hit a low of near 9840, and it has since recovered to above 10 400. The S&P 500, earlier hitting a low of 1040, has since recovered to around 1110.

However, both indicies have stalled at the area around their 50-day moving averages, and this is not good news, since the 50-day moving average has since July been a floor for the market. If it turns into a ceiling, then it will probably go lower.

Both indicies were down today, possibly signaling the end of the couple weeks of a dead cat bounce.

Below is the one-year chart for the Dow:



And S&P 500:



The next report will come in March.

Well, it looks like that my predictions of about a week ago are now panning out. On January 14, I stated, after explaining the rising wedge formation in the Dow Jones Industrial Average:

"But remember that when a rising wedge breaks down, the ensuing market reaction is usually sharply downwards. Perhaps this downward move will have to wait until the Dow catches up with the S&P. As usual, we'll just have to wait."

It seems now like the Dow has caught up with the S&P 500. After reaching a 15-month high on Tuesday, the US stock market on Wednesday sunk despite positive news from the companies and somewhat good, but still weak, economic indicators. On Thursday, a confluence of events -- China curbing lending, Obama announcing a plan to restrict banks, and the possibility that inflationist Fed chairman Bernanke may not be reappointed -- spooked the stock traders, whom then initiated a precipitous selloff that has only accelerated today, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the week 550 points off the highs.

The rising wedge formation described in the last report has been decisively broken, and it broke on heavier-than-usual volume, followed by a sharp decline, precisely as predicted. The 50-day moving average (the orange line), an important technical indicator of the market trend, has been broken. This signals that the stock market's direction for at least the next month or two is downward:



I would also like to add that with all the uncertainty in the current market environment, combined with the market's downward reaction to news that used to make it go up, plus the fact that the same stocks are moving in the same direction now as they were in late Summer 2008, signals that conditions are currently ripe for a sharp major downturn. It might qualify as a crash, or it might be a bit more shallow and slow than the classic crash.

Regardless, prospects do not look very good for the forseeable future.

If one phrase can describe the state of the economy and stock market in the first month of the decade it would have to be "weakness continues".

My prediction for the stock market to tank has not panned out (yet at least). All major US indicies have hit new highs. The Dow is at 10 700. But all is not as strong as it appears. The drivers of this advance and the underlying fundamentals are still weak, and may have gotten worse in December.

The S&P 500, after hitting the bottom line of its rising wedge formation, has remained stable and has even moved a bit higher:



On the contrary, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has remained perfectly contained in its similar rising wedge, so go figure. Whether the formation is real or phony now depends on which index you trust the most. I lean towards the S&P 500 myself, but the Dow has a pretty good track record of following trends as well:



But remember that when a rising wedge breaks down, the ensuing market reaction is usually sharply downwards. Perhaps this downward move will have to wait until the Dow catches up with the S&P. As usual, we'll just have to wait.

On the economic front, everything is looking weaker. After posting an actual gain of 4000 jobs in the month of November, the employment situation continued its worsening trend in December with a loss of more than 80 000 jobs. This is also reflected in the rates.

Though the official U3 rate showed a decline to 10.0 percent in November, remaining there in December, this does not reflect the real unemployment rate, because U3 excludes all those who are not looking for work, those who are employed part-time for economic reasons, and those who are not in the labor force but want a job now. Combining these factors in produces a much more accurate picture of the employment situation, and it is not good.

In the month of December, the U6 rate, which includes the U3 rate, those who are not looking for work, plus those employed part time for economic reasons, shot up by 0.8 percent to 17.1 percent. On a seasonally adjusted basis, though, the gain was less dramatic, but the rate remains weak, standing at 17.3 percent, up by 0.1 percent.

Adding in those who are not in the labor force but want a job now to that figure, and it stands at a collosal 20.8 percent, or 21.3 percent seasonally adjusted. The percentage of the labor force (plus them) that they are in rose by 0.2 percent to 4 percent.

In addition to this, many other economic indicators after showing positive blips are returning to a decline, a prime example being retail sales. This suggests the possibility of a double-dip downturn, with the gain between dips being extremely weak.

Alternatively these indicators could be a negative blip in a positive picture, but when most indicators are turning weaker at the same time after trending positive, it usually suggests future weakness in the economy, and consequently in the stock market.

Happy new decade to all. The next report will be in February.

If you live in Kabul, Beijing, Sydney, London, Cape Town, or anywhere east of Iceland, the decade of the 2000's has already ended for you, and you are currently in the 2010^th year of the Christian era.

But if you are west of Iceland, you are still in 2009, and have yet to enter 2010. This includes Western Laurentians such as myself. Where I live it is still less than 5 hours until the new decade. If you live in Times Square, it is less than 2 hours away.

The end of a decade is typically used to look back on the past 10 years. This is not what I will do tonight. Tonight, instead of looking back, I will shift my gaze forward, to the next decade -- the 2010's.

I do not claim to have any crystal ball or esoteric foresight, nor am I a prophet. What I do have is a combination of reason and past history, which can be used to preduct the future. The predictions below should be taken as probable, but it is possible that some or all of these may be incorrect, and should be considered as my opinion.

The decade of the 2000's accelerated the trend of the 1990's -- that of rapid technological change and advancement. This trend looks like it is going to continue throughout the early part of the 2010's, and will likely continue through to 2020 and beyond. The information age is here to stay, and the accessibility of ordinary people to knowledge, information, and disinformation, will only increase as the internet spreads throughout the world and processing power continues to increase, creating new opportunities to exploit.

The latter part of the 2000's also saw rapid political change in the United States. Notably, the end of the Bush government, and its brand of fascism (or if you prefer neoconservatism), and the ushering in of a new government -- that of the Democratic party and its de facto leader Barack Obama, who ran on a platform of "change we can believe in".

The last decade also saw extraordinary moves in the economy and stock market. The United States and the world had to endure the collapse of three unsustainable booms -- the internet bubble, the housing bubble, and the credit bubbe. The internet bubble was short, only lasting 3 years, from 1998 to 2001. It collapsed in the early 2000's, creating a downturn in the economy.

This period is critical to the next decade, because this was concurrent with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. This initiated a wave of terror in the United States, but it was not done by the terrorists, but by the people themselves. The terrorists had achieved their objective, instilling fear and terror into the hearts of the American people.

Weeks after the collapse, the Federal Reserve began to lower rates, eventually reaching down to 1 percent. This inflated the housing market and the credit market, which eventually collapsed in on itself beginning in 2006, and culminating in 2008. After this collapse triggered a depression in the United States, the Federal Reserve, now under the inflationist Ben Bernanke, lowered rates rapidly to zero. Congress was also terrorized by the collapse, and passed trillions of dollars in programs designed to prop up bankrupt institutions deemed "too big to fail". At the same time, the Federal Reserve and Treasury committed over 23 trillion dollars towards rescuing the economy.

This was all paid for by inflating the money supply by trillions of dollars. These series of events will cause the dominant story of the 2010's. Currently the trillions of dollars which have been printed out of thin air are all in excess reserves of banks, sitting in vaults. The money is there because the banks are afraid to lend out money, thus most of the trillions of dollars in money stays in the vault.

However, this will not be the case forever. An inevitable correction is on the way from the depression of 2008, a.k.a. the recovery. This is just a pumped-up dead cat bounce, but it will be enough to lure the banks into letting all the trillions out of the vaults. Inevitably the money will get out of the vaults, which I believe will happen in 2010. There are even now signs that it is coming out.

Once this money is loose in the economy and in circulation, there will be catastrophe. The money supply in circulation will greatly expand. The value of the dollar will depreciate rapidly, and prices will dramatically increase. There will be inflation. The amount of money which has been printed, and will continue to be printed, is so staggering and enormous, that it will inevitably cause hyperinflation, which is a rapid and catastrophic depreciation of a currency and the rapid and catastrophic increase of prices.

The exact mechanism of inflation is a dispute among economists, but this much is clear -- an explosion in the money supply inevitably causes inflation. The bigger the explosion, the bigger the inflation. If you thought that the Housing Bubble was bad, you haven't seen anything yet. This is at least 5 times worse if you measure it by money supply growth, so expect a wild ride.

When will this happen? History gives us some measures of how long it takes for the money supply explosion to filter through the system and cause hyperinflation. The period is always 6 months to 5 years. Since the money supply explosion started in September of 2008, the historical range for inflation is March 2009 to September of 2013. Coincidentaly, the stock market bottomed and the US Dollar Index peaked in March. Perhaps this was the first sign of it creeping into the system.

If I were to pin a date on it, I would pick 2010-2012 as the most likely date, since this is about midway in the range. The hyperinflation will occur as early as this summer, or as late as winter of 2012. The dollar will collapse, and with the current inclinations of the Federal Reserve, they may actually make the crisis worse by printing more money once it does indeed happen.

At whatever time it does happen, the fallout will be severe. No one will be able to afford anything in dollars, and hence they will have to barter for goods or use foreign currencies. A consequence of inflation is higher interest rates on debt, and the US government currently owes over 12 trillion dollars in debt, against 2 trillion in revenue. If interest rates rise, and they will in hyperinflation, the US will not be able to pay their debts. In other words, the federal government will be bankrupt. It may or may not survive the crisis, though if it does not, the states and cities will still be there.

Hyperinflation, like any other crisis, inevitably ends once the economy can stabilize under very adverse conditions. The US dollar will be no more, and will likely be replaced by a new currency, which may or may not be backed by a commodity for stability, depending on whether the lesson of inflation will be learned in full or not.

This resolution will take 2 years from the onset, plus or minus a few months. At the end of this, most companies in existence now will not exist. There will be little in the way of a financial system. There will be no functioning currency. The economy will be in tatters, having endured a decline of at least 25 percent, with unemployment being at least 40 percent.

At the latest the crisis will pass in 2014. This will be about the midpoint of the decade. The world will have changed dramatically. The US will have to essentially start over from scratch, rebuilding the economy and other systems necessary for prosperity. The recovery phase will take up the rest of the decade, a span of 6-8 years.

At the end, on December 31, 2019, there will be a more optimistic picture. The typical 20-year bear market cycle of the stock market will have ended, and the stock market and economy will be poised for another bull run. The 2020's and 2030's will be much like previous periods of boom, such as the 1920's, 1950's, 1980's, and 1990's. What new crises will await the world towards the end of the 2030's, naturally, cannot be forseen.

This will be the narrative of the 2010's around the world -- the Great Inflation and subsequent recovery. Since the Great Inflation will likely be the most severe downturn ever in American history, the recovery will in all likelihood be like no one has ever seen.

This will also dominate the politics of the decade. In the 2000's, there was a concrete and discreet trend towards totalitarianism. The Patriot Act, Airport Security, fear of terrorism, and increasing government intrusion into their daily lives, combined with a collectivist trend which has seen the erosion of liberty and increased tyrrany for the good of the mystical collective, has dominated the 2000's.

The American people, like most other peoples, are unwise, and have not noticed the trend, dreaming up justifications for more government control over other people, and the erosion of their own rights in the name of security. They will remain passive until this tyrrany they have created and voted for will bring down its weight upon them. This is what the Democratic party and Obama Administration policies will do -- it will expand the tyrrany to its logical conclusion, and establish a totalitarian regime based on the principles of economic fascism and total government.

Once this happens, the people will have a rude awakening, and will turn against the totalitarian policies. This will be concurrent with the hyperinflationary period. The people now have an extreme distrust of the Republicans, and a developing distrust of the Democrats. Next year, the people will hate both parties.

This will set the stage for a profound political shift. The Democratic and Republican parties will be the losers, and will be replaced with the genuine divisions of the liberals (or libertarians) versus the totalitarians, most of them running as independents or oddball party candidates. As part of this response to totalitarian policy, liberals will win.

The 2010's will be marked by the reversal of tyrrany and a swing back to liberty. This already has begin in 2008 and 2009, with the Ron Paul and Tea Party movements, and movements such as these will only gain power during the next decade.

This ends my predictions for the 2010's. The coming decade will be marked by catastrophe followed by renewal. It will lay the foundation for better times in the 2020's and 2030's, which will be based upon the lessons of the Great Inflation combined with a new move towards liberty in the United States.

To appropiate the mantra of my home country, the war, chaos, and bad government of the 2000's and early 2010's will give way and lay the foundation for peace, order, and good government in the late 2010's and 2020's.

Regardless of the future events I predict, I hope that every sapient on Earth and everywhere else has a great new year, and a great decade. I for one will do the utmost to make the hope of a good year a reality for myself, and I suggest you do the same.

The next major entry will be the Patrician Economic Report for January 2010, which will be less prophetic and more immediate, as is the tone of most reports.

The last month of the decade, December 2009, is here, and with it, the last Patrician Economic Report of such decade.

Well, it looks like my prediction last month of the upward move being a farce turned out to be correct. On November 15 (the last entry), the S&P 500 was at 1093. Today it closed at 1103. For the past month, it has been trapped in a range between 1083 and 1117, which is a change of 3 percent from top to bottom. That's fairly tight.



However, I am convinced that this state will not last. I have identified a disturbing chart pattern, a rising wedge. Below is the chart of the S&P 500 since one year ago, showing the pattern:



The pattern is fairly well-supported by the facts. The upper line has been matched 5 times, and 5 times the market receded. The lower line has been tested four times, and four times it has rebounded. There was a brief break below the line in early November, but this was quickly corrected for and thus can be discounted.

There are two points with the rising wedge. First, that since the trendlines converge, they will meet at some point in time, and thus the pattern will end. Second, that when this pattern ends, the outcome is nearly always a sharp move downward, on heavy volume.

Take a look at the lower portion of the chart. That is volume. When the market settled into the 1083-1117 range, volume decreased markedly. However, notice the pop in volume as the index moved below the lower line. Since then it has struggled down in the lower end of the range.

This range is about to be breached, but probably not severely until after the Christmas holiday, since most traders are off next week. After New Year's Day, however, volume will pick up (even more so than it has already), and the range will be broken, and a downturn will result.

If and when this happens, expect a downward move down to the 1000-1030 area, which is what it will probably do since that is where most corrections since July have bottomed out. This would represent a 8-11 percent downturn from the peak of 1117. However, this downturn, judging from most historical wedge collapses, will probably be around 15-20 percent, perhaps 30 percent.

Below are differing increments for a downturn (greater than 20-30% is very unlikely at present):

  5 percent -- 1061
10 percent -- 1005
15 percent -- 949
20 percent -- 893
25 percent -- 837
30 percent -- 781
35 percent -- 726
40 percent -- 670 (matching 2009 low)
45 percent -- 614 (new low)
50 percent -- 558 (new low)

Just for a little fun before Christmas, and for the sake of presenting the other side of the coin, here would be bullish moves:

  5 percent -- 1172
10 percent -- 1228
15 percent -- 1284 (pre-Lehman level)
20 percent -- 1340
25 percent -- 1396
30 percent -- 1452
35 percent -- 1507
40 percent -- 1563 (matching 2007 high)
45 percent -- 1619 (new all-time high)
50 percent -- 1675 (new all-time high)

You may have noticed in this series that a 40 percent downturn would make a new low, and a 40 percent upturn would match the high. That is because we are near the 50 percent retracement area. A 50 percent retracement is the halfway point between the high of a bull market and the low of the succeeding bear market. This market's happens to be at1121.44.

There is another event which deserves mentioning here -- the recent downturn in the price of gold. Yes, the price of gold is down. It may seem hard to believe, after months of a non-stop uptrend, but it is true. Below is a chart of gold since September, showing its rise and recent fall:



Since hitting a record high of 1212 per ounce earlier this month, gold, in the wake of a stronger US Dollar index, has taken a dive of 8.9 percent to 1108 per ounce. It has some worried that the price of gold may collapse.

However, I have a slightly more optimistic view than this. Yes, the price of it has broken a parabolic uptrend, but the final upturn which broke this was not that severe, going from 1100 to 1200 per ounce (+9 percent), in contrast to oil's nonstop rise from 50 to 150 per barrel (+200 percent). This downturn in gold is in my assessment a temporary correction in a long-term uptrend driven by the devaluation of the dollar, which will only get worse next year. Gold may fall down to 1000 per ounce (a downturn of 17 percent). If it stays above 1000 I would not be worried about a collapse in gold.

The next report will come in the next year (2010) and decade (2010's), in January of 2010. First up will be my decadal predictions, and I will forewarn -- they are dire, but they have an upside towards the end. Next will be the regular report.

See you in the next decade. May all of you have a happy Winter Solstice, Kwanza, and New Year's Day, and a very Merry Christmas.

Special Economic Bulletin

In Dubai, an emirate in the United Arab Emirates, there is a crisis which has unfolded while Americans were eating turkey on Thanksgiving. The Dubai government has announced a massive restructuring of the state-owned firm Dubai World, which involves ordinary restructuring, plus the suspension of debt payments for the next six months.

This has raised serious doubts about the fiscal integrity of Dubai's government and banking system as a whole. As you probably know, Dubai is the emirate which is attempting to diversify the economy by turning it into a resort state, thus making them independent of oil. A good idea in principle, but all of this economic transformation has been built on a mountain of debt, and there are indications now that Dubai will be unable to pay that debt.

There have been rumors about a banking crisis there, and it could spread to other parts of the world. For instance, Citigroup, the quintessential American zombie bank, has lent Dubai $8 billion. If this debt is not repaid, this could seriously hurt the bank. Europeans and Asians are even more heavily invested in Dubai, and the entire world financial system, which has been patched together using tens of trillions of dollars of devalued money and is still fragile, is at risk.

Stock and credit markets have been rattled by the news, and a wave of selloffs are engulfing the world stock markets. European stocks are down by more than 3 percent, and Asian stocks (which have yet to close) are down by almost 2 percent, hitting their lowest levals since July. American stocks aren't looking that much better. Dow futures are indicating a nearly-200 point drop at the open tomorrow.

This crisis could amount to nothing, and the stock market may just register Black Friday as a blip on the little bull market. On the other hand, it could become the spark which will reignite global financial crises, and thus translate into a vicious stock market and economic downturn.

Tomorrow, Black Friday in America, will tell us more. I decided to bring this bulletin out earlier than I otherwise would have because Americans may be caught off-guard by this imminent crisis while they were celebrating a major holiday.

Further Reading:

Dubai Woes Roil Financial Markets
Asia Sown Sharply on Dubai Banking Crisis
Euro Shares Record Biggest Drop in Seven Months
US Market Bracing for Selloff On Worries About Dubai's Debt

Well, November has come, and with it, the Patrician Economic Report for the penultimate month of the decade.



Not much has changed since one month ago, when the Dow was over 10 000 and the S&P 500 was at 1100. Between then and now, there has been a 6.5 percent downturn, which was promptly met with a spike back to 1100, which has since stalled back down to 1090.

The Dow has hit a new high of over 10 300, but the S&P 500, which is a broader measure of the market, has only briefly cracked the old high of 1101, to hit 1105, before sinking back down.

On the 1-year chart, you can notice that since the July rally, each successive phase of the market trend has become more volatile, with bigger swings up and down over time.

However, I believe that the trend belies a market and economic condition which is much worse than it appears. First of all, here is a 2-and-a-half month chart of the S&P 500, with volume (the amount of shares traded) being shown at the bottom of the chart:



Notice that volume is heavier on the downturns, and lighter on the upturns. This implies that when trading activity is vigorous, there is selling pressure on the index. This is not a good sign. Anemic volume on the upside and heavy volume on the downside indicates that the uptrend is, for lack of a better term, a farce, and thus not sustainable once heavier volume kicks in (and it inevitably will at some point).

This is also how all previous bear market rallies have ended -- heavy volume at the beginning, waning volume at the peak, and heavy volume taking it back down. And yes, we are still in a bear market, at least until the current rally has proven itself to be a real bull market, which it cannot do in a mere 9 months.

Secondly, there is the matter of unemployment. The official rate as reported by BLS (the U3 rate) is 10.2 percent. Yes, it has finally cracked that "10 percent" threshold every American has talked about.

However, as I have outlined previously, the U3 rate is a very inaccurate picture of the jobs situation. It excludes discouraged workers, and others "marginally attached to the labor force", who are in fact unemployed (i.e. out of a job).

If we include these people, the rate has been over 10 percent for months. In fact, the October statistics show that this rate (which is recorded as the U5 rate) is now at 11.3 percent, and has been rising for 15 months, adding a full half percentage point from September to October.

But the situation is even worse than this, if the underemployed are included in the unemployment rate (which they were from 1949-1994) to compare apples to apples. If the people working part-time for economic reasons, those who are considered not in the labor force but want a job now and cannot find one are included along with the truly unemployed, the October figure shoots up to 20.9 percent, unchanged from last month.

The underemployment rate may be unchanged, but the real unemployment rate is worsening quickly, signaling an economy which is far weaker than it appears, despite the fact that government GDP data showed a rise of 3.5 percent in Q3 2009, confirming the "third quarter recovery" stock traders were looking for. However, if the number is adjusted for real inflation (an underestimation of 2.7 percent), and government spending (cash for clunkers and other stimuli) is taken out, then Q3 GDP was, in fact, essentially flat.

Lastly, a check on September's inflationary factors:

- Stock market continuing a rabid runup with no supporting facts. Maybe (stocks have stalled)
- Doubling of the money supply. Check.
- Gold continuing to rise. Check (new record high of 1120)
- Commodities in general shooting up. Check (though at less of a pace)
- Weaker dollar. Check (still on verge of new low)
- Higher inflation. Check (inflation is accelerating)

So basically, all is mostly as it was in October. The next report, the last of the decade, will come in December.