Truck sales sound a warning – by New Deal democrat Twenty years ago Prof. Edward Leamer made a big splash with a speech to the Fed in which he proclaimed that “Housing IS the Business Cycle,” highlighting how downturns in the housing sector tended to lead recessions by an average of 7 quarters. For today’s […]
November JOLTS report adds to the data showing continued labor market deterioration – by New Deal democrat The second of this morning’s reports was the JOLTS survey for November. Like many other statistics concerning jobs, the JOLTS series have been deceleration for several years. The question now is whether they level off or continue to […]
– by New Deal democrat A year ago I said that I would only update information about the state of COVID-19 if there was something significant to report. And as of the end of the year 2024 there is: deaths from COVID in 2024 have fallen to the point where they are equivalent to the upper […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Both the long leading and short leading indicators have weakened in the past two weeks. The former is due to the short end of the Treasury yield curve re-inverted. The latter is due in part to continued weakness in new jobless claims, […]
– by New Deal democrat Unusually this month, the ISM manufacturing index was delayed one day after the first business day of the month. In other words, it was released this morning instead of yesterday. In any event, a refresher that because manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, and was in deep contraction both […]
– by New Deal democrat Last month I started by report on construction spending by writing “ Construction spending for October also came in generally positive. On a nominal basis, total construction spending rose 0.4% to a new record, and residential spending rose 1.5%.” Well, you can forget that, because this month was one of those […]
– by New Deal democrat Welcome to 2025! The data this year starts out with jobless claims for the last week of 2024, which of course is heavily influenced by seasonality. The news was mainly good this week, with claims declining -9,000 to 211,000, the lowest number in over half a year. The four week […]
– by New Deal democrat I was on vacation through the weekend, and since there has been no significant economic data in the post-Christmas lull, I decided to continue to play hooky. After tomorrow, on Thursday the 2025 data will start in earnest, so expect a return to form later this week. In the meantime, […]
– by New Deal democrat This Christmas week initial claims declined -1,000 to 219,000. The four week average rose 1,000 to 226,500. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims 46,000 to 1.910 million, the highest number in over 3 years: On the YoY% basis more important for forecasting purposes, initial claims were up 2.8%, […]
– by New Deal democrat I’ve been looking at new and existing home sales more in tandem recently, as we are looking for a rebalancing of the market, with prices abating in existing home sales and inventory increasing, vs. new houses where prices have been slightly declining. Additionally, as usual let me start with the important […]