– by New Deal democrat Jobless claims continue to tell us two things: (1) the jobs market continues to slowly weaken, but (2) it is not recessionary. This week I’ve changed my graphing scheme slightly, to emphasize the less noisy four week moving average of initial claims, to better show the residual post-COVID seasonality, and to […]
– by New Deal democrat This morning gives us the last of our three measures of home sales, prices, and inventory, new home sales. These are the most important of the three because while they are very noisy and heavily revised, they are the most leading of all housing metrics, and so they can tell us about […]
– by New Deal democrat Yesterday the existing home sales report showed continued deceleration in YoY price increases to 1.3%, along with an increase in inventory of houses for sale, indicative of the ongoing rebalancing of the housing market. This morning’s repeat home sales reports from the FHFA and S&P Case Shiller strongly confirmed that deceleration and ongoing […]
– by New Deal democrat The first part of this week is all about more housing data. This morning started out with existing home sales, which although they typically constitute about 90% of all sales are the least important for forecasting purposes, since the main thing that happens is only a change in ownership, and therefore they […]
– by New Deal democrat There is an old saying that “economic expansions don’t die of old age. They are murdered.” I have been writing about the economy, and examining all sorts of leading, coincident, and lagging indicators, for 20 years; and the longer time goes on, the truer that saying appears. My most recent examination […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The trends that have been in place ever since the start of Tariff-palooza!, aided and abetted by the GOP budget-busting bill and the burgeoning Israel-Iran war, are continuing. The US$ is declining, oil prices are spiking, rail traffic has turned negative, and […]
– by New Deal democrat As promised yesterday, today let me take an extended look at the important leading sector of housing. I want to walk through each of the important series generally in the order in which they have typically peaked, and how in at least one important respect this time is – somewhat […]
– by New Deal democrat Because no data will be released tomorrow due to the Federal holiday, I am going to defer a deeper look at the very important housing sector until then. Today I’ll just note the top line indications from this morning’s housing construction data. As per usual, permits are much less noisy than […]
– by New Deal democrat Because tomorrow is the Federal Juneteenth Holiday, initial and continuing claims were released today. They continue to show a slowly weakening, but not (yet) recessionary, economy. Initial claims declined -5,000 to 245,000 for the week, while the four week moving average rose another 4,750 to 245,500. This four week average is […]
– by New Deal democrat Today’s second report was for industrial production, including its important manufacturing component. The data for May was mixed, as total production (blue) declined -0.2%, while manufacturing production (red) increased 0.1% In March I wrote that “I suspect the big increases in February and March in manufacturing, like this morning’s retail […]