– by New Deal democrat As per usual, retail sales are one of my favorite economic indicators, because in the past they have told us a lot about both where the economy is at present, and because consumption leads employment, so much about where the economy is likely to be in the near term future. […]

 – by New Deal democrat Industrial production is much less central to the US economic picture than it was before the “China shock,” since so much production moved overseas, meaning US consumers buy much more imported goods than they used to. Still it is an important if diminished coincident indicator. This morning’s report for July can […]

– by New Deal democrat Normally I don’t pay too much attention to producer prices, but occasionally they are very important – and today is one of those days.  Here’s why. In the past, as shown in this graph going back over 50 years: when producer prices outstrip consumer prices, that means producers aren’t able to […]

 – by New Deal democrat Obviously this morning’s PPI number was the most important report of the day. I want to get to that later, but first let’s update the jobless claims situation. The good numbers in initial claims continued, as they declined -3,000 to 224,000. The four week moving average increased 750 to 221,750. But […]

 – by New Deal democrat In my note yesterday about the July CPI, I noted the transition from the trend where overall inflation ex-shelter was low, and shelter was high but disinflating, to a trend where inflation ex-shelter while still low was increasing, as shelter contributed the most to disinflation. The question was, and will be […]

 – by New Deal democrat The story of this month’s CPI report is summed up in the first few graphs below: the shelter portion of the index continues its slow deceleration, while the non-shelter portion of the index appears to be in a slowly rising trend. This has resulted in headline inflation trending ever so […]

 – by New Deal democrat Despite some very soft employment and production data in the past several weeks, Wall Street has been on something of a tear, making repeated new all-time highs. Over the weekend I saw the following comment, which piqued my interest: It certainly does seem that Wall Street is dismissing the news […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. There is a strong divergence between the high frequency data, which is very positive, and the monthly data, which has caused me to go on “recession watch.” Needless to say, this is very unusual, suggesting there may be some special factors at work; […]

 – by New Deal democrat Twenty years ago, Prof. Edward Leamer gave an important speech at the Fed’s Jackson Hole, WY, retreat called “Housing IS the Business Cycle.” In that speech he discussed the fact that, historically, private residential construction as a share of GDP on average peaked 7 quarters before the onset of recessions, followed […]

– by New Deal democrat As I wrote earlier this week, the positive trend in initial jobless claims is one of the most important data points indicating there is no imminent threat of recession. That continues, but what is increasingly disconcerting is the completely contrary signal from continuing claims. Let’s deal with the weekly numbers first. […]