Housing and car sales, oh my! [If last week was a slow week for economic data, this week is a virtual wasteland until Thursday, so I took yesterday off.] Last month I wrote that typically it has taken at least a 20% decline in housing construction to be consistent with an oncoming recession and that […]
Manufactuing remains white hot, while construction spending is mixed As usual, we started out the month with the forward-looking ISM manufacturing report for September, as well as construction spending for August. Let’s take the ISM report first since it is an important short-leading indicator for the production sector. And here, the news was good, as […]
New jobless claims increase: exit Delta, enter supply chain chokepoints? This week jobless claims were higher for the third week in a row, and the 4-week average also rose slightly. Initial claims rose 11,000 to 362,000, and the 4-week average rose 4,250 to 340,000, from last week’s pandemic low: Meanwhile, continuing claims declined 18,000 […]
Real spending increases, real income declines in August (Note: I’ll report separately on construction spending and the ISM manufacturing index later.) Real personal income and spending held up well throughout the pandemic, due to a vigorous government response. This morning these were reported for the last full month of any assistance. In nominal terms, personal income […]
House prices continue to surge. But maybe . . . Both the FHFA and Case-Shiller house price indexes for July were released this morning. Both showed a continued surge in house prices, with one difference that may be of importance. First, here are both indexes normed to 100 as of January 1991, when the FHFA […]
Coronavirus dashboard for September 29: the demographics of disease and death First, let’s start with the good news. The Delta wave continues to roll out just about as swiftly as in rolled in. Cases are down almost 33% nationwide, including in all 4 regions: And all 5 States that were the worst hit at the […]
The producer portion of the economy continues to do well First, a little blogging note. This week is light on data. House prices tomorrow, jobless claims Thursday, then a bunch of month end/beginning data on Friday. In other words, don’t be surprised if I take a day off. This morning the report on durable goods […]
New home sales continue rebound in August, as price increases continue slight deceleration Housing is a long leading sector of the economy, and new home sales, while very noisy and heavily revised, tend to lead all of the other housing indicators. [Note: FRED hasn’t updated its charts with this morning’s information, so graphs below do […]
Coronavirus dashboard for September 22: the Delta wave rolls out? At last, it appears that the Delta wave may be receding, as for now, the US is on a definite downslope in cases. As of yesterday, the US recorded 135,000 cases, a 31,000 decrease from the peak only 20 days before: Deaths have continued […]
August housing construction shows stabilization, following interest rate moderation This morning’s report on August housing permits and starts shows that the stabilizing of mortgage rates in the past few months has now stabilized housing construction. Housing starts increased 3.9% m/m, and total permits increased 6.0%. The less volatile single-family permits increased 0.6%. As a result, […]