July JOLTS report: the broad deceleration in the game of reverse musical chairs (generally) continues I have been writing since early this year that, because of the pandemic, there have been several million fewer persons looking for work, leaving a huge number of unfilled job vacancies, particularly in the face of a roughly 10% higher […]
Continued good news for consumers on gas prices There’ll be lots of economic news starting tomorrow, but for today let’s pause and take a look at the energy situation. Here’s a look at oil prices in the past year up through yesterday from CNBC: And here’s a look over the same time period from Gas […]
Weekly Indicators for August 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. In the past couple of weeks, the decline in gas prices has slowed considerably. Once they stabilize, the underlying economic fundamentals should reassert themselves. In the meantime, there are cross currents of interest rates and manufacturing orders, […]
July personal income and spending: more modestly good fallout from lower gas prices There was more good fallout from the recent decline in gas prices in today’s July report on personal income and spending. Personal income rose 0.2% for the month nominally, and nominal spending rose 0.1%. But because the relevant measure of inflation, the […]
Jobless claims: put the recession on hold! (For now) For the last several months, there had been nearly a relentless slow increase in new jobless claims. That trend has broken, at least for now. Initial jobless claims declined by 2,000 to 243,000. The 4 week average, however, increased by 1,500 to 247,000. Continuing claims declined […]
Coronavirus dashboard for August 24: the post BA.5 wave respite In general, things are headed in the right direction for now in the pandemic. BIobot’s latest wastewater update from one week ago shows a 1/3rd decline in COVID particles nationwide. Here’s the regional breakdown: The West, spearheaded by CA, is down 50%, and the South […]
July new home sales signal a recession is near Let’s start with reminders about new home sales data: 1. It is very noisy 2. It is heavily revised. But 3. It usually leads at peaks and troughs. With that in mind, unless today’s new home sales data for July is revised away, it is very […]
The state of inflation There’s no big economic news today (Aug. 22), and as usual very limited COVID reporting over the weekend, so let’s catch up on the state of inflation in the economy. Three of the biggest components of inflation have been gas, housing, and vehicles. Let’s look at each in that order. According […]
Weekly Indicators for August 15 – 19 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The continued decline in gas prices has been doing some nice things to other indicators as well. Meanwhile, manufacturing as measured by the regional Feds is getting worse. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you […]
Prices of existing homes have probably peaked By now you may already know that existing home sales declined further in July, to an 8 year low (excluding the pandemic lockdown months: This is roughly a 30% decline from their peak, and is certainly a recessionary level. But perhaps more importantly at the moment, it […]