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 […]
– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. While several of the monthly updates I’ve discussed here in the past week have tiptoed in the direction of yellow caution flags, that’s not apparent at all in the high frequency data that is updated every week, much of which comes from […]
Jobless claims join other data series inching in the direction of yellow caution territory – by New Deal democrat Ever since jobless claims started higher in May, I’ve cautioned that I suspected that unresolved seasonality may be at play. We are now at the point where claims were at their low points for all last […]
Industrial and manufacturing production close to 10 year+ highs in June – by New Deal democrat If the news in housing construction the other morning was cautionary, the news on manufacturing and industrial production was very good. Manufacturing production (red in the graph below) rose 0.4% in June, and is only 0.2% below its post-pandemic […]
Housing permits and starts stabilize, but construction comes close to generating yellow recession caution signal – by New Deal democrat There was good news and bad news in this morning’s report on housing permits, starts, and construction. The good news is that both permits and starts stabilized after last month’s initially reported multi-year lows. The […]