Initial and continued jobless claims: signs that the worst of the pandemic related layoffs may be behind us Some – very relative – good news in unemployment claims this week. It looks like the recent increase in new claims has peaked, while continued claims continue to decline. With new daily infections, still horrible at 100,000/day, […]
Welcome to the vaccination Hunger Games That, dear reader, is a slight variation on what my sibling unit said to me when I related the saga of my attempts to schedule a COVID-19 vaccination. As I have mentioned from time to time, I am an Old Fossil. And, well, the supply shortage of the COVID […]
January 2021 jobs report: a strong divergence between very weak job gains, but a big drop in unemployment; but the only critical number is the doses of vaccine administered For the past several weeks, based on the increase in initial jobless claims, I have warned that the December employment report might have a negative number, […]
Coronavirus dashboard: Groundhog Day Today is Groundhog Day, America’s version of the midwinter festival, where people can at least begin to look ahead to the coming of spring in the near future. That’s a good analogy for where we are in the COVID pandemic. Let me start with the ghastly news.First, there have been over 26 […]
The two most leading sectors of the real economy – manufacturing and construction – remain “on fire” Data for January 2021 started out this morning with the ISM manufacturing index, while the December laggard of construction spending was also reported. While the ISM manufacturing reading declined from 60.7 to 58.7, since 50 is the break-even […]
Real personal spending declines in December, while income rises; not quite enough to start a “double-dip” recession This morning’s report on personal income and spending for December reversed the pattern we have seen all during the second half of 2020. After rebounding strongly for 6 months, real personal spending (blue in the graph below) declined […]
Upward trend confirmed in new jobless claims On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 101,498 to 873,966. Seasonally adjusted claims also declined by 67,000 to 847,000. The 4 week moving average, however, rose by 16,250 to 868,000. Since the 4 week average has risen above 850,000, and weekly claims were above 900,000 for […]
Coronavirus dashboard for January 25: a vaccination race against time vs. the new mutations All of the significant economic data is backloaded this week, onto Thursday and Friday. So don’t be surprised if I take a day off between now and then.In the meantime, here is a Coronavirus update. First things first: the most ominous […]
A detailed, updated look at the housing market Existing home sales for December were reported this morning at 6.76 million annualized, just below the October 10 Year+ high of 6.86 million. Although existing home sales are about 90% of the entire housing market, they are less important economically than new housing construction, which has multiplier […]
Initial jobless claims: still elevated compared with several months ago, another negative jobs report for January a possibility Initial jobless claims this week came within a hair of meeting my criteria for a change to an upward trend. On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 151,303 to 960,668. Seasonally adjusted claims also declined […]