Jobless claims increase; no longer positive but neutral (and likely still affected by unresolved seasonality)  – by New Deal democrat I’m still on the road, so this will be an abbreviated report. Initial claims rose 14,000 to 249,000, the highest since last August. The four week moving average rose 2,500 to 238,000, the highest since […]

 – by New Deal democrat Angry Bear PM Take: It would seem like Fed Chair Powell feels good about the progress. The theme of the JOLTS report for June was “continued deceleration,” but no particular cause for concern. As we’ll see below, that’s because the “bad” metrics declined just as much as the “good” ones […]

Repeat home sales were benign in May, forecast continued downtrend in shelter CPI in months ahead  – by New Deal democrat First, a brief administrative note: I am traveling this week, so posting is going to be sporadic and delayed. I’ll get to this morning’s JOLTS report later today or tomorrow morning. With that out […]

Weekly Indicators for July 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The high frequency data, like the personal income and spending report, continue to show a strong consumer. Some of the long term negatives have also gotten “less bad” as well. As usual, […]

Personal income, spending, and prices: consumer remains strong, inflation close to 2% target no matter how you measure it  – by New Deal democrat I am on the road today, so I will have to keep this brief. In June nominal personal income rose 0.3%, and spending rose 0.2%. Since PCE inflation rose less than […]

Coincident real GDP metric is good, but leading indicators from the GDP report are not: is the Fed listening?  – by New Deal democrat Real GDP grew 0.7% in Q2, or a 2.8% annualized rate, a perfectly good number in line with the past three years: Probably even more importantly, the GDP deflator increased 0.6% […]

Jobless claims hold their ground against the most challenging comparisons of last summer  – by New Deal democrat This week completed the most challenging YoY comparisons with last summer. Recall that I suspect there may be some unresolved post-pandemic seasonality in these numbers, as this year’s increase starting in late spring has been close to […]

 – by New Deal democrat Now that we have new as well as existing home sales, let’s take a little more extended look at the housing sector. Let me start by reiterating the big picture: mortgage rates lead sales, which in turn lead prices. Further, new home sales are the most leading of all housing […]

Existing home market inventory and prices move slowly towards normalization, while sales remain punk  – by New Deal democrat Since existing-homes sales are less important for economic purposes, and especially with new home sales being reported tomorrow morning, I will keep this brief. What we are looking for is rebalancing in the housing market. For […]

 – by New Deal democrat Over the weekend Harvard econ professor Jason Furman suggested that the Fed funds rate is not very restrictive: “As inflation has come down the real Federal funds rate has risen and is now the most restrictive it has been this cycle, a point that Austin Goolsbee has emphasized a number of times […]