March real retail sales lay an egg, suggests downturn in nonfarm payrolls by the end of summer – by New Deal democrat After a quiet early part of the week, today we get a deluge of data: retail sales and industrial production for March, and total business sales for February. Because real total business sales […]
Initial claims continue to warrant yellow caution flag – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims last week rose 11,000 to 239,000. The more important 4 week average rose 2,250 to 240,000. Continuing claims, with a one week delay, decreased 13,000 to 1,823,000: At this juncture the YoY change is more important, because increases of […]
Properly measured, consumer inflation is only about 3.0% YoY, and the economy has experience Deflation since last June – by New Deal democrat One month ago, I “officially” took the position that inflation had been conquered, and that, properly measured, the economy had actually been experiencing deflation since last June. This morning’s report only confirmed […]
Scenes from the March employment report 2: unemployment recession indicators – by New Deal democrat A reminder: I may be offline for the next couple of days. In the meantime, yesterday I looked at the 5 leading indicators contained in the employment report, and summarized how they either signal recession now or within the next […]
Scenes from the March employment report 1: leading sector indicators – by New Deal democrat There’s no significant economic news this week until Wednesday’s CPI report, and as a side note, I might be offline for a day or two later this week. In the meantime, today and tomorrow let’s take a look at some […]
Weekly Indicators for April 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Probably unsurprisingly, the big news this week was the effect of the revisions to the initial jobless claims data, and also the turning down of several sectors in the monthly jobs report. […]
March jobs report: leading sectors turn down in a pre-recessionary, but still quite positive, report – by New Deal democrat Unsurprisingly, my focus on this report, like the last few reports, was on whether residential construction jobs turned negative or not, whether manufacturing and temporary jobs continued on their downward trajectory, and whether the deceleration […]
Revisions cause initial claims, the last positive leading indicator, to capitulate – by New Deal democrat Initial and continuing claims underwent some serious revisions with this week’s release. Rather than attempt an explanation myself, here is the nub of the BLS’s own explanation: Beginning … [this week], the methodology used to seasonally adjust the national […]
One of the last of the positive short leading indicators rolls over – by New Deal democrat The only economic release today of any significance was the ISM non-manufacturing index, which tracks services. It is only about 25 years old, and is not a leading indicator the way its sibling manufacturing index is, but for […]
February JOLTS report shows further *relative* weakening in the jobs market – by New Deal democrat The February JOLTS report showed a weakening in almost all important trends. The strongest component of the entire series has been job openings. I tend to place lower significance on this, because there is ample evidence that companies have […]