– by New Deal democrat Consumption leads employment, and retail sales are the most timely monthly indicator of consumption. Indeed, population-adjusted real retail sales in the past have tended to turn negative one year or more before a recession has begun. In June, nominally retail sales rose a strong 0.6%. But because consumer prices rose 0.3%, […]

 – by New Deal democrat Industrial production is much less central to the US economic picture than it was before the “China shock,” since so much production moved overseas, meaning US consumers buy much more imported goods than they used to. Still it is an important if diminished coincident indicator. This morning’s report for June was […]

 – by New Deal democrat We finally have some new data this week – the usual, jobless claims. Initial claims declined -5,000 for the week, while the four week moving average declined 5,750. With the usual one week delay, continuing claims, on the other hand, rose 10,000 to a new 4.5+ year high of 1.965 […]

Two important danger signals in the June employment report  – by New Deal democrat This is Ben Casellman, Chief Economic Correspondent for The NY Times’s take on last Friday’s employment report: I beg to differ. As I wrote Friday, underneath the headlines, this was a barely positive report – with some significant negatives. Let me […]

 – by New Deal democrat In addition to the jobs report, because this is Thursday we also got the latest jobless claims numbers. To wit, initial claims declined -4,000 to 233,000, and the four week moving average declined -3,750 to 241,500. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims were unchanged at 1.964 million: The more […]