Another big increase in consumer prices in February, as the yield curve tightens Consumer prices increased 0.8% in January, the fourth time in five months that it has exceeded 0.5%. YoY inflation is now 7.9%, the highest rate since 1982. My favorite measure, CPI ex energy, is also up 6.6% YoY, the worst since the 1981-82 recession […]
JOLTS report for January: the game of employment musical chairs continues The Census Bureau JOLTS report for January, released this morning, indicates that the jobs market continues to be nowhere near equilibrium – which continues to be a good thing for workers’ wages. Several months ago I introduced the idea of a game similar […]
Jobless claims continue to be low, but lows for this expansion likely already past Initial claims (blue) rose 11,000 to 227,000 (vs. the pandemic low of 188,000 on December 4). The 4 week average (red) rose 500 to 231,250 (vs. the pandemic low of 199,750 on December 25). Continuing claims (gold, right scale) increased 18,000 […]
Coronavirus dashboard for March 8: Omicron looks like it has burned through all of the “dry tinder,” leaving perhaps only 10% of the US population still fully vulnerable to infection Back in autumn when Delta was raging, I thought that, once it burned through all of the “dry tinder,” so many unvaccinated people would have […]
The current spike in gas prices is not sufficient to bring about a recession (at least, not yet!) [Well, I never got around to a COVID update last week. Since most States don’t report over the weekend, I am going to wait until tomorrow. But the bullet point hint is: it increasingly looks like Omicron […]
February jobs report: a Big Win! There were two main trends I was looking for in this jobs report: 1. Is the pace of job growth beginning to decelerate? 2. Is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating? The answers were: 1. The 6-month average of monthly gains, which was running at 548,000 in the 2nd […]
Continuing claims continue near 50 year lows as the Omicron tsunami continues to recede, NDd [Programming note: Hopefully I’ll put up a coronavirus update later today.] Initial claims (blue) declined 18,000 to 215,000 (vs. the pandemic low of 188,000 on December 4). The 4 week average (red) declined 6,000 to 230,500 (vs. the pandemic low […]
February car sales decline, but truck sales continue rebound; plus a comment about the urgency of dealing with supply chain issues I used to follow vehicle sales more closely – until the vehicle manufacturers, one by one, stopped reporting monthly, and only updated quarterly for the previous quarter. While this makes the data less timely […]
Manufacturing continues red hot, while construction gains completely consumed by inflation February monthly data started out this morning with the ISM manufacturing report. The index, especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. In February the index rose from 57.6 to 58.6, as did the more leading new orders […]
No signs of the international political crisis creating any Western economic crisis at this point No important economic data today, and no significant COVID updates over the weekend. Let me make a few comments and then turn to the bond market, particularly as it reflects the international situation.I have no more insight into the Ukraine […]