– by New Deal democrat Because that services are about 75% of the economy, even if goods production is contracting, since the turn of the MIllennium that has not necessarily meant a recession is in the offing. The economically weighted average to the ISM services and manufacturing indexes has been much more accurate since then. […]

In December, the theme for new homes was “steady as she goes” in sales, price, and inventory trends  – by New Deal democrat To reiterate my theme from the past few months, I’ve been looking at new and existing home sales more in tandem, with a rebalancing of the market in mind. For that to […]

JOLTS report for December shows mild improvement in most metrics, anticipates stabilization in wage increases  – by New Deal democrat 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 […]

ISM manufacturing index in January the strongest since 2022  – by New Deal democrat Although manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, (it was in deep contraction both in 2015-16 and again in 2022 without any recession), the ISM manufacturing index remains an important indicator with a 75+ year history of accurately describing that […]

Personal income and spending for December: more “steady as she goes” but with late cycle characteristics -by New Deal Democrat The December personal income and spending report showed that for the huge consumption sector of the economy, “steady as she goes” continued, as both nominal and real personal income and spending rose again in December. […]

Jobless claims: seasonality and neutrality continue  – by New Deal democrat The week’s first meaningful data is jobless claims. These have been trending higher YoY, but with lots of seasonal noise. And that trend continued this week. Initial claims increased 6,000 to 223,000. The four-week moving average (especially more important right now to filter out […]

 – by New Deal democrat I don’t normally discuss movements in the stock and bond markets, but occasionally there are important paradigm shifts that can tell us a lot about the economy, and the last few months have been one of those times. The Federal Reserve began to cut interest rates on September 18th. What […]

 – by New Deal democrat There is no significant economic news until Thursday. In the meantime, today and tomorrow let me discuss a couple of issues at the intersection of economics and politics. The 2024 Presidential election was one of the closest popular vote margin for the winning candidate, at 1.5%, since Richard Nixon’s 0.7% […]

Joe Biden  – by New Deal democrat Over 5 years ago, I looked at the 500-year history of the Roman Republic. In my penultimate discussion of its downfall, I wrote: “By 78 BC the Republic was dead on its feet. Virtually all of its norms of office-holding had been swept away. Political mobs using violence to get […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The big news this week was the continued surge in commodity prices, normally a sign of tight demand (but sometimes a shortage of supply, that does not seem to be the case now); and also higher interest rates showing up in corporate […]