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 […]
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 […]
Industrial and manufacturing production continue to falter – by New Deal democrat I frequently call industrial production the King of Coincident Indicators, because so often the turning point in this metric has been at the peaks and troughs of the economy as a whole. That has not been the case since last September, when this […]
June retail sales continue to falter, with the important exception of motor vehicles – by New Deal democrat As usual, retail sales is one of my favorite indicators, because it tells us so much about the 70% of the US economy that is consumption, as well as being a short leading indicator for employment. It […]
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 […]
The American working class is doing better, thank you very much – by New Deal democrat With the release of the CPI report earlier this week, I can update several measures of average middle class American income. Real average hourly wages increased 0.2% in June, and are up 1.6% from one year ago: Real aggregate payrolls […]
Another well defined report by NDd about the possibility of recessions. Everything points in such a direction. If the Fed keeps raising its rate, it is almost a foregone conclusion. One a recession starts there is no backing away from it (as if we could). Scenes from the employment report: important leading and coincident indicators […]
Scenes from the June employment report: consumption leads employment, goods vs. services edition – by New Deal democrat No big new economic news today, so let’s take a more in-depth look at some of the information from Friday’s employment report. Today I’m going to focus on the division between goods and services. As I’ve written […]
Weekly Indicators for July 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. A real-time daily update of inflation (based on millions of prices posted at internet sales sites among other things) has become available, and has been added to the array of coincident indicators. The […]
June jobs report: deceleration continues, with weakest private jobs sector growth since 2020 – 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. In May the […]