Housing sales decline, while price surges continue So I take a little one-day road trip on my vacation and come back to find much weeping and gnashing of teeth and generalized whining about a big decline in new home sales. Well, what exactly were they expecting? The new home sales data is particularly volatile and […]
Comments on existing home sale prices Existing home sales were reported yesterday. Since, although they are about 90% of the market, they have much less effect on the economy than new home sales, I normally don’t pay that much attention.But I did want to emerge from my vacation hideaway to make a few comments. 1. […]
New jobless claims rise sharply; is the Delta wave beginning to take its economic toll? New jobless claims are the most important weekly economic datapoint with regard to the effects of vaccination progress. At this point, it is also a test of how much the “delta wave” of new cases is setting economic progress back. […]
Coronavirus dashboard for July 21: brace yourself for the surge in deaths I have been warning since late June that the situation would likely look very different by the end of July. By 2 weeks ago, I wrote: “In the near future, there appears to be bad news and *relatively* “good” news for the US. The […]
Housing permits continue decline in June; more challenging YoY comparison First, a brief comment about the NBER’s declaration yesterday that the COVID recession ended in April 2020. I am not surprised at all that they chose that date. It has been clear for a year that the trough in economic activity across the board was […]
June retail sales decline after taking inflation into account, but overall pandemic gains “stick” As usual, retail sales is one of my favorite indicators, because it gives us so much information about the consumer economy. The news for June was mixed. Nominally retail sales were up +0.6% for the month. But after taking into account […]
Industrial production slightly positive overall, but with negative revisions Industrial production is the King of Coincident Indicators. It is the single datum that most frequently coincides with the NBER determination of the beginning and end of recessions. Production increased 0.4% in June, but May’s result was reduced by -0.2%. The manufacturing component declined less than […]
Coronavirus dashboard for July 19: The UK as Delta wave trailblazer for the US An initial note: I am on vacation this week, so posting is likely to be sporadic. I’ll still hit the important data.Now that the Delta wave is well and truly here in the US, let’s compare it with the UK experience, […]
by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for July 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. All timeframes continue positive, but the renewed outbreak of COVID – indeed, its uncontrolled exponential spread – is the proverbial elephant in the room, and is quite likely to Bigfoot the entire forecast […]
Real wages decrease sharply – at least, if you include used vehicle prices As I pointed out yesterday, the big increase in inflation over the past few months has made the YoY change in real wages for nonsupervisory workers negative. Let’s take a little closer look. Here is a graph of wages for nonsupervisory workers […]