Core capital goods orders, three month average of manufacturers’ new orders both make new all-time highs – by New Deal democrat Before I update this morning’s personal income and spending data, I wanted to briefly note some significant news in yesterday’s report on manufacturers new orders. (I’ll discuss the important leading metrics from the GDP report […]
New home sales: if you lower prices, they (buyers) will come – by New Deal democrat New home sales are the most leading of all the housing metrics, but suffer from being heavily revised as well as extreme volatility. With that caveat out of the way, in December new single family home sales (blue in […]
Attacks on Red Sea shipping, and its tie to US energy consumption – by New Deal democrat The drought in economic data continues today. So let me continue on the issue of energy, tying into yesterday’s note on hybrid and electric vehicles. Here’s an eye-opening graph from JP Morgan via Carl Quintanilla’s social media feed, showing […]
A discussion: EV sales have been stalling, while hybrids are flying off dealer lots – by New Deal democrat In addition to housing, the other big area where supply shock inflation has not completely resolved is vehicles. Basically almost the entirety of 2020 production was lost, leading to roughly a 10 million vehicle shortfall in […]
The Bonddad Blog: Are working class wages really still a malady? New Deal democrat Via Kevin Drum, NY Times columnist Nick Kristof says, “There isn’t a good term for the bundle of pathologies that have afflicted working-class Americans . . . .” “One gauge of how many Americans are struggling is that average weekly nonsupervisory wages, a […]
Weekly Indicators for January 15 – 19 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The big headlines yesterday were that stocks made a new all time high, for the first time in two years. Meanwhile, estimated plus actual earnings so far for the 4th Quarter of […]
Briefly noted: existing home sales appear to be bottoming near 30 year lows as prices continue to firm – by New Deal democrat Last month I wrote that existing home sales “are likely in the process of bottoming, as they have been in the range of 3.79 million to 4.10 million for the past five months:” […]
Housing construction changes little in December; but increased mortgage rates from H2 2023 have not yet been digested – by New Deal democrat For this post, I’m going to show what the housing market looks like from most to least leading of the indicators. That shows that, although this morning’s release for housing permits and […]
Jobless claims: bar one week, the lowest number of layoffs in over half a century – by New Deal democrat To reiterate my theme from last week, we’re back to the virtuous scenario where almost nobody is getting laid off. Initial jobless claims last week declined -16,000 to 187,000. Except for one week in September […]
Industrial production continues in near-recessionary trajectory – by New Deal democrat In contrast to this morning’s good news on consumption, production continued its lackluster 2023 all the way to the end. Total industrial production (blue in the graph below) increased 0.1% in December, but revisions to the two previous months totaled -0.2%, so the net […]