The October JOLTS report: very good employment market continues, just below best levels Monday’s JOLTS report for October was, surprisingly, a little weaker than the employment report from one month ago, that I described at the time as perhaps the best in the entire expansion. But this is a relative statement; basically, most of the […]
November jobs report: another good report with some signs of deceleration HEADLINES: +155,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7% U6 underemployment rate rose 0.2% from 7.4% to 7.6% Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: […]
A note about the financial markets The markets are closed today in observation of former President George H.W. Bush’s funeral. In the meantime, let me offer a brief few observations (pontifications?) about my sense of the immediate and longer term trend. First off, here is a broad look at the last 10 years for the […]
Strong manufacturers new orders in November ISM report There are a lot of economic writers who won’t tell you when something moves against their thesis. Those guys trumpeting a flatlining of commercial and industrial growth last year? They never heard of it this year (hint: because it’s up!). To the contrary, one of the reasons […]
Why this Friday I’ll pay particular attention to the temporary jobs number With the long leading indicators outside of corporate profits and ease of credit having turned neutral to negative, at least for now, my attention is turning more and more to the short leading indicators. And one of those — temporary employment — is […]
The recent rise in initial jobless claims: signal or noise? Yesterday initial jobless claims for the prior week were reported at 234,000, a six month high. That’s 32,000 above the recent one week low. The four week moving average rose to 223,250, more than 15,000 higher than its recent low: Is it cause for concern? […]
October personal income and spending strong In October personal income increased 0.5%, and personal spending increased 0.6%. These are both very strong increases. Further, as the graph below shows, real inflation adjusted income and spending both also rose: These are coincident indicators that form part of the quintessential nowcast. Real personal income adjusted by transfer […]
Q3 corporate profits increase Third quarter corporate profits were released as part of the first revision of GDP this morning. Since corporate profits deflated by unit labor costs are a long leading indicator, let’s take a look. Here is the raw corporate profits table released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis: Lines #3 and #11 […]
October new home sales plummet — but take it with a big grain of salt As you may have already read elsewhere, new home sales plunged -8.9% in October to the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 544,000. Here’s the accompanying graph: BUT … take this with a big grain of salt. The reason I rely […]
“On my wall, the colors on the maps are running” Two years ago in a post entitled “Those who cannot see must feel”, I wrote: That’s the translation of an old German saying that I used to hear from my grandmother when I misbehaved. It is pretty clear that, over the next four years, the American public […]