– by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. With the bond market anticipating Fed rate cuts ahead, it has already lowered mortgage rates somewhat on its own. That has led to a jump in new applications, and to an even bigger spike in refinancing. As usual, clicking over and reading […]

 – by New Deal democrat The effects of Hurricane Beryl had just enough of an effect on home building in July to cause me not to hoist a yellow recession caution flag in this important leading sector. While the hurricane had no significant effect on permits, it likely did have an effect on starts and […]

 – by New Deal democrat In the past, industrial production has been the King of Coincident Indicators, since its peaks and troughs tended to coincide almost exactly with the onset and endings of recessions. That weighting has faded somewhat since the accession of China to the world trading system in 1999 an the wholesale flight […]

 – by New Deal democrat The second point of economic data released this morning, retail sales, were also positive. On a nominal basis, retail sales in July rose 1.0%. After adjusting for inflation, they rose 0.8% to the highest level so far this year. The below graph norms both real retail sales (dark blue) and […]

 – by New Deal democrat Last week I pointed out that the YoY increases in initial and continuing jobless claims appeared to be all about Texas in the wake of Beryl. This week there was good news even with some continued hurricane Beryl effects in Texas. Initial claims declined -7,000 to 227,000 for the week, […]

– by New Deal democrat The CPI for July continued all of the trends I have been writing about for the past year or more:  – Headline and core CPI continue to slowly decelerate.   – energy inflation is non-existent  – shelter inflation remains very elevated but continues to declerate, following house prices.  – all prices […]

 – by New Deal democrat In the paradigm popularized by Prof. Edward Leamer 20 years ago, motor vehicle sales are the 2nd domino to fall, after housing, in the procession of sectors that turn down prior to recessions. I haven’t updated this in a while, so let’s take a look. As an initial matter, the […]

Producer prices remain tame  – by New Deal democrat Producer prices for final demand (blue) rose 0.1% in July, while upstream raw commodity prices (red) rose 0.7%, close to their highest monthly increases in the past two years: In the larger pre-pandemic scheme of things, the one month rise in commodity prices is not a […]

Weekly Indicators for August 5 – 9 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up, a day later than usual, at Seeking Alpha. While there was some excitement at the racetrack Monday as stocks just missed making a new 3 month low by a hair, the more exciting news by […]

– by New Deal democrat The final data point from last week that I wanted to catch up on was construction spending, and especially residential construction and spending. As reported last week, in June total nominal spending declined -0.3% in June, but is higher 6.2% YoY. The more leading residential sector also showed a -0.4% […]