Amherst's Stephen Stanley added.......>

US DATA REACT: Amherst's Stephen Stanley added "despite ubiquitous anecdotal and

survey evidence that wages are accelerating, the hourly compensation figures

have been very soft recently. In my view, this too is partly a function of the

pending tax legislation. I suspect that households have been delaying income to

the extent possible in hopes of declaring it later and paying a lower marginal

tax rate."

- He adds "income growth has been surprisingly slow since the election, even as

the labor market and the economy have remained strong. The Q2 compensation

increase was slashed from 1.8% to 0.4%, reflecting the benchmark data that I

referenced last week from the GDP report. The Q3 reading was also pared from

+3.5% to +2.7%" so "unit labor costs have fallen in three of the past four

quarters, though, again, I suspect that these figures are being distorted by tax

avoidance strategies."