– by New Deal democrat Let’s take our weekly look at jobless claims. Particularly since it is one of two “quick and dirty” elements that will indicate whether the “recession watch” I inaugurated yesterday will need to be upgraded to a “warning.” Initial claims rose 8,000 last week to 247,000, while the four week moving average […]

 – by New Deal democrat Last month I concluded my report on the economically weighted ISM manufacturing and services indexes by writing “new orders for the entire economy are tight on the cusp of tipping into contraction.” This month, they did, warranting a “Recession Watch.” To recap, because manufacturing is much less important to the economy […]

 – by New Deal democrat The JOLTS survey, which decomposes the employment market into job openings, hires, quits, and layoffs, was reported this morning for April. In 2024 the data were most consistent with a “soft landing,” but the actions of the new Administration, especially on trade, have exacerbated the fear that this might transform into […]

– by New Deal democrat Let’s take a look now at construction spending for April. To cut to the chase, in all respects there was a continued decline. In nominal terms, total construction spending declined -0.4%, while the more leading residential construction spending declined -0.9%, the third straight month for declines in both measures: Total […]

Usually, I place New Deal democrat’s title for his post above. I made it simpler for readers this time to get his point across. Briefly: Between the combination of manufacturing (25% of the economy) and non-manufacturing (75% of the economy), the economic growth of the nation is moving like a slug or as New Deal […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. As I wrote about here this week, the supply chain effects of the tariffs have finally bled through to rail shipments, and probably trucking as well. Meanwhile, despite all the uncretainty, as we saw yesterday with the personal income and spending report, consumers […]

 – by New Deal democrat We finish the month of May with the very important personal income and spending for April, which gives us a thorough look at the consumer. In this case it is particularly complicated by the fact that “Liberation Day” tariffs and various further retaliatory increases were imposed at various times during the […]

 – by New Deal democrat Let me start this post by picking up where I left off yesterday. In yesterday’s post I suggested that an absolute YoY decline in intermodal rail freight might well show up in this morning’s report from the AAR. And as the below chart shows, that’s exactly what happened, with intermodal traffic […]

 – by New Deal democrat One of the main reasons I include the last two years when I write about initial and continued jobless claims is that a distinct unresolved post-pandemic seasonality has developed. Even after seasonal adjustment, claims have tended to rise in the late spring towards the summer, and then decline beginning in late […]

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no significant new economic data today, so let’s take an updated look at the downstream effects on the supply chain and retail sales so far from T—-p’s tariffs. To begin with, at least some of the tariffs are indeed in effect. Here is a graph from Ben Casselman of The […]