New Deal Democrat’s Weekly Indicators for November 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. It had to happen sooner or later. Earlier this year, based on the long leading indicators, I went on “Recession Watch.” Now, for the first time in a very […]
October retail sales: consumers: “We’re not dead yet!” – by New Deal democrat Retail sales, my favorite consumer indicator, was reported this morning for October. And it was a good number, up +1.3% nominally, and up +0.5% after adjusting for inflation: On the bright side, this was the highest absolute number since April. On the […]
Jobless claims: put the recession on hold! (For now) For the last several months, there had been nearly a relentless slow increase in new jobless claims. That trend has broken, at least for now. Initial jobless claims declined by 2,000 to 243,000. The 4 week average, however, increased by 1,500 to 247,000. Continuing claims declined […]
Increasing trend in jobless claims continues; on track to give recession warning in November Initial jobless claims rose another 7,000 to 251,000 last week, an 8 month high. The 4 week average rose 4,500 to 240,500, a 7+ month high. And continuing claims also rose 51,000 to 1,384,000, which is 78,000 above their 50 year […]
Negative May and YoY real retail sales add to the foreboding signals of a recession next year Nominal retail sales for the month of May declined -0.3%, and April was revised down by -0.2% to +0.7%. This reduces April’s number, after inflation to +0.4%, followed by a “real” decline in May of -1.2% after rounding. […]
The worst interest rate upturn since 1994 is likely to produce the worst housing downturn in over a decade No economic news of note today; but tomorrow we will see housing permits and starts for March, and on Wednesday existing home sales. So let’s take an important look at housing. The recent increase in mortgage […]
Just thought this would be of interest to our readers. This was aired yesterday, 8/15/19 on: The Take Away, NPR. (About 12 minutes long.) Click the arrow to hear
(lightly edited for ease of reading) Yesterday the Conference of Mayors and the Council on Metro Economies and the New American City released a report prepared by IHS Global Insight that is a repeat and thus update of a similar study performed after the 2001 – 2002 recession. Income and Wage Gaps Across the US. I […]
Last week the 2nd quarter numbers for labor share of national income came out. Labor share ticked up a bit from the previous quarter, but pretty much exactly the same. There is a graph I use to detect if a recession is imminent. The graph gets updated as the labor share number is revised. Here […]
Before this last recession, readers of a long time here might recall that I used my flower shop as a barometer for the economy. I noted that things were not doing well as our sales had started to decline in August of 2006. The smart boys and girls called it December 2008 as starting December […]