Slight decline in housing construction: the negative actual economic impact has not yet begun – by New Deal democrat Housing permits (gold) increased slightly in January from their December lows, while the more volatile housing starts (blue) declined again. The much less volatile single family permits (red, right scale) also declined again to a new […]
Initial claims: nobody is getting laid off, but slight weakness in continuing claims compared with 2022 – by New Deal democrat Initial claims remained below 200,000 at 195,000, while the 4 week average increased very slightly to 189,500. Continuing claims increased to 1,696,000, the third highest number in over a year: Holiday seasonality has ended. […]
Despite sharp rebounds in retail sales and manufacturing production, both metrics are on the cusp of being recessionary – by New Deal democrat Retail sales for January rose strongly in January,up 30% in nominal terms and up 2.4% after accounting for inflation. While that looks great, it only reverses the two downward readings of November […]
Measured by actual rather than fictitious prices, inflation is decelerating substantially towards the Fed target ADDENDUM: the huge impact of shelter – by New Deal democrat For the last year, consumer prices have mainly been about two things: (1) the huge rise, and then fall, in gas prices; and (2) the phantom menace of owner’s […]
The #1 likely reason I suspect the economy has not gone into recession yet – by New Deal democrat I’ve been reading increasing talk about the fabled “soft landing,” or alternatively, “rolling recession.” For example, over the weekend Liz Ann Sonders of Schwab told “Wall Street Week” that housing is already in a recession, but […]
Weekly Indicators for February 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha I neglected to post the link to this yesterday, so let me do it today. My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. We continue to see a slow drip, drip, drip of ever so slightly more negative coincident data, without it crossing over into […]
Updating some important coincident indicators – by New Deal democrat We returned to no more significant monthly data today. So here are some important coincident indicators I’ve been particularly following. Redbook consumer purchases only increased 4.3% YoY last week, the lowest number in almost 2 years. The 4 week average also declined to 4.7%, also […]
As Holiday seasonality disappears, initial jobless claims turn higher YoY – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 13,000 last week to 196,000. The four-week moving average declined -7,500 to 189,250. Continuing claims increased 38,000 to 1,688,000. Below I show all three since initial claims first fell below 300,000 in late October 2021: Because […]
Credit conditions in Q4 were recessionary – by New Deal democrat While we are still in our lull concerning monthly data, on Monday there was a significant update of one long leading indicator that is only reported Quarterly: the Senior Loan Officer Survey. This survey has an excellent history of over 30 years telling us […]
Scenes from the blockbuster January jobs report 2: revisions do not resolve discrepancies in the reports – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I wrote that the blockbuster January jobs report was essentially the result of two factors: (1) a very low number of potential applicants in the jobs pool with an unemployment rate well under 4% […]