– by New Deal democrat Let me start out this month with a historical review of why I have always paid so much attention to real retail sales. Going back almost 80 years, real retail sales have always turned down in advance of a recession, and they have almost always turned negative YoY simultaneously or […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Despite the steep sell-off and rebound in the stock market this week, the underlying “hard data” indicators about money, spending, and transportation were all steady and almost all positive. The sell-off was about sentiment due to the uncertainty brought about by the […]

The constant threats of tariff this and tariff that has its consequences and creates an instability to which the market reacts. Threatening our next-door neighbors with variable tariff rates does not bode well for Wall Street. Forty percent to seven percent, hmmmm . . . No recession yet. NDd has his report below. The Quick […]

 – by New Deal democrat I typically do not pay much attention to producer prices. Sometimes they do lead consumer prices, but since the turn of the Millennium more often they have been coincident. But with the onset of tariff wars, they may set off some of the first alarm bells. And that may have been […]

February CPI: a very good report, with even the chronic “problem children” getting “less bad”  – by New Deal democrat Let me cut right to the chase: the February consumer inflation report was actually very good. It wasn’t just that the headline and core numbers only went up 0.2% for the month, or that the […]

Angry Bears’ New Deal democrat discusses JOLTS frequently. I am not sure if everyone knows what it means. I believe it calls for a short explanation. The acronym JOLTS is an abbreviation for “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) produces JOLTS reports monthly and also annual estimates of job […]

 – by New Deal democrat To review briefly, the monthly JOLTS reports give us a more granular look at the employment sector, but are delayed by one month vs. the jobs report. Like the jobs reports, most JOLTS series have shown deceleration for several years. The question over the last year has been whether they […]

Scenes from Friday’s jobs report: the (totally contradictory) Big Picture  – by New Deal democrat There is no important economic data today, so let’s take a closer look at some of the noteworthy items from Friday’s jobs report. I’ll start out with the Establishment Survey side and then turn to the Household Survey side. Goods […]

Sunday March 9th The “Constitutional Interregnum”  – by New Deal democrat Is there anything that can be done with a President who has the support of 1/3+ one member of the Senate?  Since he can’t be impeached and convicted, which requires 2/3’s of the Senate, and as of last July per the Supreme Court he is […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The malign and moronic “policies” of the 2nd T—-p Administration so far have driven Economic Policy Uncertain to all time record highs: But despite that, the rumblings under the surface of the data have been quite minor so far. There are changes in […]