– by New Deal democrat Note: there was a good advance manufacturers’ new orders report for September this morning. I’m going to save discussing it until Friday, when I dissect the regional Fed reports, which are now all in through November. Neither building permits and starts, nor new residential sales, were updated this morning, which means […]
– by New Deal democrat With the end of the government shutdown, jobless claims are fully updated and back on their regular schedule. And this week, there was more of the same. Initial jobless claims were down -6,000 to a very low 216,000, and the four week average declined -1,000 to 223,750. With the typical […]
– by New Deal democrat First, a scheduling note. Several data releases have been made this morning. Several more delayed releases having to do with housing *might* be released tomorrow. Alas, the very late Q3 GDP report is not going to be released at all until the end of December. There will be no releases on […]
Scenes from the very tardy September jobs report – by New Deal democrat An opening comment: it is an abomination that the US government treated its statistical agencies as doing expendable work. Thus, after over 85 years of continuity, there will never be an unemployment rate, nor a consumer inflation reading, for October. Which means we […]
– by New Deal democrat Although the government shutdown is over, most data points – including all having to do with housing – have not been updated, which means that alternate data sources, including the NAR’s existing home sales report, have temporarily become our best look at the housing market. As per my context all this […]
– by New Deal democrat First things first: the jobs data we received this morning, like the official data reported earlier this week, is “stale news.” The period canvassed giving rise to this data was over two months ago. As such, aside from the fuller texture which it provides to us, the most important question is […]
– by New Deal democrat While this morning’s much delayed September jobs report was the big news of the day, the DoL did resume their normal weekly reporting of unemployment claims, so let me in turn resume my normal weekly note of them. Initial claims declined -8,000 to 220,000 while the four week moving average […]
– by New Deal democrat There was no new official data reported this morning, including the normal monthly report on housing permits, starts, and construction. Yesterday the Department of Labor did partially update several weeks of jobless claims data, which helps us estimate what might happen with the unemployment rate when the September jobs report is […]
As with yesterday, the good news is that important official economic data is being reported again. The bad news is that it is very stale, as in covering last August. – by New Deal democrat Still, one important area that private data did not cover well during the shutdown was orders and spending on durable goods, […]
– by New Deal democrat The good news is, with the end of the government shutdown, economic data reporting resumed this morning. The bad news is, we are now in the latter part of November, and the construction spending report issued this morning was for all the way back in August. In fact, the last time […]