Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

May jobs report: a solid positive report, with the important (likely) exception of wages

– by New Deal democrat My Big Theme for the past few months has been that the AI Boom (or possibly bubble) is counterbalancing a stagnant or even shallowly recessionary rest of the economy. The bottom line is that the May report was the third in a row that not only confirmed that, but suggested […]

Jobless claims virtually screaming for lower unemployment rate; is post-pandemic seasonality making a return?

– by New Deal democrat We are – maybe! – finally seeing some of the unresolved post-pandemic seasonality reasserting itself as to initial jobless claims. For the record, initial claims rose 13,000 to 225,000 last week, the highest number since early February. The four week average rose 6,500 to 214,750. With the typical one week delay, […]

Economically weighted ISM services + manufacturing indexes show expanding economy, stagnant employment, and rampant inflationary pressures

 – by New Deal democrat The economically weighted ISM manufacturing + services indexes have become one of my favorite datapoints. That’s in part because the former has a nearly 80 year history of being a solid leading indicator, although somewhat attenuated since the start of the Millennium. But the latter now also has a long […]

April JOLTS report confirms a low-hire, low-fire, and low-quits economy

– by New Deal democrat The JOLTS report is low on my list of useful tools, but it does break down the labor market further than the jobs report, and it does have several slightly leading components, so let’s take a look at the latest report, which is for April. Below are job openings (blue), […]

Manufacturing expands in May; April construction expands nominally, but only data center construction in real terms

 – by New Deal democrat May data started out as usual with the ISM manufacturing index. Plus, as a bonus, official government data is finally back on schedule, only 7 months after the end of the shutdown! By which I mean to say, April construction spending was also released, on time. To cut to the chase, […]

New Deal Democrats Weekly Indicators for May 25 – 29

My Weekly Indicators for May 25 – 29 is up at Seeking Alpha, New Deal democrat The split between the portion of the economy being driven by AI-related production and profits and the broad consumer economy continues to stand out starkly. But as I have pointed out often in the past many months, there is […]

April new home sales: prices somnolent, an interesting wrinkle in inventory

– by New Deal democrat The final note from yesterday’s data is concerning new home sales, and more importantly at the moment, prices. As a general refresher, new home sales are perhaps the most leading of all housing data; but they are very volatile and heavily revised, which is why I pay more attention to […]

The producer part of the economy is doing just fine, thank you

– by New Deal democrat Per my comments yesterday, so much data was released (with none coming today) that I did not report on several of the items. I’ll get to new home sales later, but first let’s talk about new orders and revised GDP. The central theme of yesterday’s personal income and spending report […]