In housing construction, the last domino still refuses to fall: Travelin’ Man edition – by New Deal democrat [First, a blogging note: I will be traveling for the next week and a half. I’ll keep posting the data, but the posts are likely to be brief, and may be a day late. On days when there […]
July retail sales: gas and vehicle sales continue to dominate the trend – by New Deal democrat As always, real retail sales tell us a great deal about what is happening in the consumer economy. July continued the recent trend since gas prices started declining over a year ago. Nominally retail sales increased 0.7%. Since […]
Scenes from the July employment report – by New Deal democrat On Friday I noted that the July employment report was a perfectly good, solid one in absolute terms, but that almost all the leading components were soft and weakening, as I would expect to see near the final stages of an expansion. Let’s take a […]
Weekly Indicators for July 31 – August 4, and long term forecast through H1 2024 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. No big changes in the data, but note that mortgage and other interest rates are up close to their peaks. This will operate to slow […]
July jobs report: almost across the board deterioration in leading sectors – by New Deal democrat My focus remains on whether jobs growth continues to decelerate, and whether the leading indicators, particularly manufacturing and construction jobs, as well as the unemployment rate (which leads going into recessions) have meaningfully deteriorated. Almost all of these items […]
Weekly Indicators for July 17 – 21 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. At least when it comes to weekly measures of consumer spending, the “waiting for godot” recession seems to have finally arrived. Meanwhile other metrics have been picking up steam as to the near […]
Jobless claims: close but no cigar for the red flag – by New Deal democrat Initial claims declined -9,000 to 228,000 last week, and the four week average declined -9,250 to 237,500. Continuing claims, with a one week delay, rose 33,000 to 1.754 million: More importantly for forecasting purposes, initial claims are up 7.0% YoY, the […]
Spencer England departed a year or so ago, Barkley Rosser from Econospeak recently, and now my friend Dan . . . Obituary Daniel Robert Crawford, 75, died peacefully at his home, surrounded by hisfamily, July 17,2023. He was born October 30, 1947 to Robert and RuthCrawford in Oakland, CA. Dan’s family of origin was a […]
June housing report: a tale a two diametrically opposed sectors – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I wrote that housing under construction, along with new vehicle sales, were two important reasons that no economic downturn had occurred yet. Today’s report on housing construction for June showed two almost diametrically opposed trends: single family houses had […]
Weekly Indicators for July 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Several indicators that had been stubbornly positive throughout the decline in leading metrics as of this past week finally turned either neutral or negative. Much as the dominant punditry at the moment is […]