Two long leading indicators – real money supply and credit conditions – worsen – by New Deal democrat ~~~~~~~ M1 and M2 money supply for May was reported yesterday by the Fed. The former was unchanged for the month, and the latter was up a tiny 0.1%: That is significant. Why? Because real money supply […]
House prices continued to surge through April; expect no meaningful moderation in the CPI anytime soon House price increases continued to go through the roof as of April, as reported this morning in both the Case Shiller and FHFA house price indexes. The Case Shiller national index rose another 2.1% for the month and 20.4% […]
A comment on housing, inflation, and Fed policy (and a side comment on spending) No big economic news today, and as usual little State reporting on COVID over the weekend, so let me make a couple of points. As an initial note, the big report I will be paying attention to this week is personal […]
New home sales rebound, but downtrend in sales intact; prices continue to climb In response to April’s dismal report, I wrote that “new home sales are heavily revised after the first report. It is not unusual at all for big monthly moves like this to suddenly look much less severe when the number gets revised […]
Resurrecting the metric: initial claims lead the unemployment rate; no recession signal so far Initial jobless claims declined -2,000 to 229,000 last week, vs. the 50+ year low of 166,000 set in March. The 4 week average rose from 4,500 to 223,500, compared with the all-time low of 170,500 eleven weeks ago. Continuing claims rose […]
Housing unaffordability closes in on bubble peaks; expect substantial price declines and increased foreclosures in the likely oncoming recession – by New Deal democrat I last looked at the issue of housing affordability at the beginning of April. As we all know, mortgage rates have continued to skyrocket in the past several months. At present […]
Existing home sales: the freight train of price appreciation rolls on Although existing home sales are less economically important than new home sales, what has been happening with their prices, given the experience of the housing bubble and bust 15 years ago, is of added importance. The simple summary is that sales have declined substantially, […]
Coronavirus dashboard for June 19: documenting the transition from pandemic to endemic ~~~~~~~ The COVID-19 pandemic is ever so gradually transforming into an endemic illness, the major risks of which still mainly fall on seniors. Here is the long-term view of cases (dotted line) and deaths (solid line) in the US: While cases are similar […]
Weekly Indicators for June 13 – 17 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. My paradigm is: first the long leading indicators turn. Then the short leading indicators turn. Then the coincident indicators turn. Finally the lagging indicators turn. For months I have been documenting the downturn […]
Positive production print points to continued economic expansion in May The usual suspects are out, claiming that a recession has either already started or is imminent. Well, the big reason I call industrial production the King of Coincident Indicators is because empirically is the one whose peaks and troughs coincide most definitively with NBER recession […]