Economics Update

Well, it looks like bank failure Friday is going to be busy, with 200 Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) agents descending on Puerto Rico, and a report that BankUnited has halted attempts to raise capital, which indicates a fair number of bank seizures, or at least serious investigations, and BankUnited is a fairly big bank.

On the brighter side, we had the Consumer Sentiment Index rise in March.

In the meantime, people are still buying very little, so international trade is falling, including the US trade deficit, which fell to a 6 year low.

Part of this is that banks are increasingly unwilling, or charging more, to issue letters of credit to shippers, which makes shipping more difficult and expensive.

This is being mirrored by the tepid response to the Federal Reserve/Treasury program, the TALF, which has pushed back its start date because of the low number of interested parties.

In energy, we have oil falling on weak demand.

In currency, we have the dollar falling on the good consumer confidence numbers, which slows the "flight to safety."