Coronavirus dashboard for January 11: good news and bad news With no new economic releases today, let me give you a brief update on the fast-moving Omicron wave.First, the good news: as I pointed out yesterday, several States that were hit hardest first by Omicron look like they are hitting or have already hit peak: […]
Coronavirus dashboard for January 10: how “mild” Omicron is depends upon how much you lag the data So, how “mild” or not, is Omicron? It depends on whether you lag the data on hospitalizations and deaths or not.The original story out of South Africa was that Omicron was extremely mild. Despite a huge spike in […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for January 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Surprisingly, Omicron has not had any wide impact on the coincident data – at least not yet. On the other hand, the long leading forecast has become weaker, as interest rates have moved […]
December jobs report: more signs of real tightness, while new jobs added are (seasonally?) disappointing There were three big questions I had going into this jobs report: 1. whether the big decrease in new jobless claims to a half century low would translate to another big top line number in the jobs report 2. is […]
December jobs report: more signs of real tightness, while new jobs added are (seasonally?) disappointing There were three big questions I had going into this jobs report: 1. whether the big decrease in new jobless claims to a half-century low would translate to another big top-line number in the jobs report2. is wage growth holding up? […]
Initial and continuing jobless claims: 2022 starts out where 2021 left off The labor market in 2022 started out where it left off in 2021, as new claims increased slightly, by 7,000, to 207,000. The 4 week average of new claims increased 4.750 to 204,500: Readings this low haven’t been seen in half a century. […]
November JOLTS report: imagine, if you will, a game of musical chairs, New Deal democrat Imagine a game like musical chairs, except that some players are the chairs (employers) as well as people who want to sit in the chairs (potential employees), and players, both sitters and chairs, are continually entering and exiting the game. […]
First data releases of 2022 confirm manufacturing strength, construction slowdown The first December data, the forward-looking ISM manufacturing report, has been released. Yesterday construction spending for November was also released. Let’s take a look at both. The ISM index, especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. In […]
Grading my 2021 forecasts Critical self-examination is, or at least ought to be, part of the process of making forecasts. After all, how can you learn if you don’t see how earlier hypotheses panned out? As I have usually done, let’s take a look back at how I forecast 2021 was going to look, to […]
Hopeful New Year, New Deal democrat In view of the continued conflagration of the COVID pandemic, I am eschewing the traditional “Happy New Year!” salutation as we end 2021 and begin 2022 in favor of the above “Hopeful New Year.” I always try to stick with the data – one of the favorite things anyone […]