October 2020 Cass Freight Index® Turned Positive Year-to-Year,
Gaining 2.4% Against an Unusually Sharp, Unseasonable Decline the Year Before


Such Was the First Annual Gain in Freight Activity Since November 2018, When
Excessive Fed Tightening Was Being Used to Constrain Consumer Liquidity and
Domestic Economic Growth


Where Pandemic Forced the Shutdown of the U.S. Economy in March 2020,
FOMC Rate Hikes Already Had Strangled Business Activity


October Industrial Production Continued in L-Shaped Recovery,
With Annual Change Flattening Out in Negative Territory


Annual Boom of 5.7% in October Real Retail Sales Was Not Credible;
Related Retail Employment and Consumer Goods Production
Continued in Annual Decline, Despite the Gain in Freight Activity


On Top of an Upside Revision, Housing Starts Gained 4.9% in the Month;
This Was Not Statistically Significant at the 90% Confidence Interval


On Top of a Downside Revision, October Building Permits
Monthly Change Flattened Out at a Statistically Significant 0.0%

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