Tesla Deliveries Come Close -- 76,000 Vs 80,000 -- January 3, 2017

Drudge Report is down. I assume denial of service "attack." [Some minutes later, it's back up.]

Mars Attacks

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Tesla 

Link here.

But getting to 500,000 in calendar year 2018 will be quite a feat.

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Toyota's Kentucky HQ To Shut Down 

This is not news, but it's for the archives. Back in 2004, or thereabouts, Toyota announced it was going to consolidate its North American operations to Plano, TX. The AP was simply updating the story. The people and the cities affected have known about this for years, and nothing has changed, I guess, except the move has now begun.

Toyota is beginning to move hundreds of jobs out of its northern Kentucky headquarters as part of a nationwide consolidation.

Workers have begun relocating from Toyota's Erlanger plant and will continue through the end of 2018.

The company, which is moving its facilities to the Dallas suburb of Plano, said the move will affect 648 workers. All employees received a job offer as part of the restructuring.

Erlanger has been home to the Japanese automaker's North American engineering and manufacturing headquarters since 1996.

Marc Fields, Erlanger's city administrator, said the city is sad to see Toyota leave, but has been preparing for this moment since Toyota announced its consolidation plans in April 2014.

Plano is just north of DFW, not far from where we live. Plano is home to a number of Fortune 500 companies, and is a very, very popular destination for folks living in the Dallas-Ft Worth area.
 

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GDP Now

Latest forecast: 2.9 percent — January 3, 2017. Dynamic ink here.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2016 is 2.9 percent on January 3, up from 2.5 percent on December 22.

The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to fourth-quarter growth increased from 0.35 percentage points to 0.73 percentage points following the U.S. Census Bureau's Advance Economic Indicators release on December 29. This was offset by a decline in the forecast of the contribution of net exports to fourth-quarter growth from -0.25 percentage points to -0.67 percentage points following the same release.

The forecasts for consumer and government spending and business fixed investment all increased after this morning's construction spending release from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Manufacturing ISM Report On Business from the Institute of Supply Management.