– 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. […]
– by New Deal democrat We’ve settled back in to our typical post-employment week lack of new data, so today is a good day to update the leading indicators from the employment report, especially in view of their important contribution to why I went on “recession watch” yesterday. As you probably already know, because I harp […]
“Recession Watch” instituted for US economy, as economically weighted ISM indexes indicate present contraction – by New Deal democrat Two months ago, in response to the new orders components of the economically weighted ISM manufacturing and services indexes, I hoisted a yellow flag “Recession Watch.” That continued last month as well. This month the economically […]
– by New Deal democrat Since Friday featured the very salient jobs report – and its immediate fallout – I delayed reporting on two other important reports that typically start the month – the ISM manufacturing index, and construction spending – until today. As it turns out, they only amplify the message from the employment report […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. In the middle of writing the post yesterday afternoon, the news broke that T—-p had fired Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of the BLS, for the crime of publishing jobs data that he did not like. For the moment, she has been replaced by her […]
– by New Deal democrat I don’t have time to write a complete report on the ISM manufacturing index for July, and the construction spending report for June, both of which were reported this morning, so I will do that Monday when the ISM services report also comes out. In the meantime, here is this bullet […]