– by New Deal democrat Industrial and manufacturing production slid further in October, by -0.3% and -0.5% respectively. They are also down respectively -1.2% and -1.8% from their late 2022 highs: It’s a good thing I suppose that manufacturing is no longer such an important part of the American economy, because as the below graph of […]
– by New Deal democrat Let me start with my usual reminder that real retail sales is one of my favorite economic indicators, because it tells us so much about the state of the consumer, and since consumption leads employment, it is a short leading indicator for that as well. In October retail sales rose 0.4% […]
– by New Deal democrat Initial claims have now completely reverted to trend after their recent hurricane-induced blip. Initial claims rose 3,000 for the week to 217,000, while the four week moving average decreased -5,750 to 221,000. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims declined -11,000 to 1.873 million: On the more important YoY basis, […]
– by New Deal democrat Today’s CPI report for October generally showed stable monthly increases, but slight increases in YoY comparisons. But as usual, it was almost all about the usual culprit of shelter, as more fully parsed below; to wit: – Headline CPI increased 0.2% for the month, the fourth month in a row […]
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 – by New Deal democrat On Friday I wrote about how the Fed likely contributed, via hurting aspiring homeowners, to the outcome of the Election last week. Today I want to take a look at another issue – wages. As it happens, while I was writing this Paul Krugman put up […]
– by New Deal democrat Today in the US is officially Veterans Day, in which we salute the service of all veterans. But it started – and still continues in some countries – as Remembrance Day, a somber memorial to all those who were killed in World War 1, which ended on November 11, 1918. […]
– by New Deal democrat This is not a formal post about Tuesday’s election. But with the benefit of “revealed preference” a/k/a 20/20 hindsight, it’s pretty clear that the Fed rate hikes were an important part of why Kamala Harris and the Democrats failed. Because we may or may not be experiencing a “soft landing” […]
– by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims continued their return to normalcy this week, as they increased 3,000 to 221,000. The four week moving average declined -9,750 to 227,250, which is tied for the lowest number except for two weeks in five months. Continuing claims, with the typical one week delay, rose 39,000 to […]
– by New Deal democrat [I was busy doing my civic duty the past few days. I’ll have something to say about the election at some point later, but not now.] Yesterday the ISM services report came in very strong for the second month in a row, with the headline at 56.0 and the more […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. There’s always some noise in the high frequency data, and this week that noise was in the positive direction, as almost all of the coincident data shows strength. On the other hand (and this is the economy we’re talking about, there’s always […]