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ISM manufacturing remains weak, while construction spending continues to...
- by New Deal democratAs usual, the month’s data begins with the ISM manufacturing index, and with a one month delay, construction spending.Because manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the...
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JOLTS report for October: continuing trend of deceleration has begun to pose...
- by New Deal democratThe JOLTS survey parses the jobs market on a monthly basis more thoroughly than the headline employment numbers in the jobs report. It also is a slight leading indicators for...
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ISM non-manufacturing shows that services continue to power the economy...
- by New Deal democratBecause services are roughly 3/4’s of the economy, I now pay a lot of attention to the economically weighted average of the ISM manufacturing and services indexes. Since the...
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Jobless claims: neutral - with an extra grain of salt
- by New Deal democratAs I cautioned last weekend in my “Weekly Indicators” update, we have entered that period of the year where Holiday seasonality means take everything with at least a little...
View ArticleNovember jobs report: the expected monthly rebound masks deeper declining trends
- by New Deal democratTo understand this month’s jobs report, let’s start with last month’s, where I wrote that “there were some signs of real weakness in this report that do not appear to be...
View ArticleWeekly Indicators for December 2 - 6 at Seeking Alpha
- by New Deal democratMy “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.This week whipsawed the data that was heavily influenced by Thanksgiving week. The tone of the short leading and coincident...
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Yellow flags from the November jobs report
- by New Deal democratMost of the commentary about Friday’s jobs report for November was positive. By contrast, my summary - in which I averaged the two last reports to take into account the...
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The case for accelerating inflation is weak
- by New Deal democratNo economic news again today. Tomorrow we will get the CPI report for November. As to which, I have read a few posts in which the claim is made that inflation, especially core...
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November consumer inflation remains well-contained except for the two most...
- by New Deal democratLet me pick up where I left off yesterday discussing trends in consumer prices.One thing I have done every month for the last couple of years is to review all the categories for...
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Jobless claims: seasonality strikes again
- by New Deal democratAs is so often the case this time of year, seasonality likely played havoc with this week’s new jobless claims. Last year Thanksgiving was November 23rd; this year it was the...
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Good news on real aggregate payrolls, but an additional yellow flag on jobs
- by New Deal democratWith the update on inflation earlier this week, let’s take a look a real average wages and real aggregate payrolls. Plus there is a significant update to my yellow flag caution...
View ArticleWeekly Indicators for December 9 - 13 at Seeking Alpha
- by New Deal democratMy “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.While the short term forecast and nowcast have remained relatively constant, the “action” has been in the long leading...
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Updating the nonfinancial long leading indicators
- by New Deal democratI haven’t “officially” updated my take on the long leading indicators - those that forecast a recession at least one year beforehand - in almost two years. That’s because the...
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Real retail sales on the cusp of breaking out of their multi-year doldrums
- by New Deal democratConsumption leads employment, and as I reiterated yesterday real per capita retail sales has a history as a long leading indicator.Which means that retail sales for November,...
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Industrial production continues to slide
- by New Deal democratIndustrial production declined for the third month in a row in November, down -0.1%, while October was revised downward another -0.2%. Manufacturing production on the other hand...
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The housing sector now hoists a red flag recession warning
- by New Deal democratThe very important construction data from the long leading housing sector was mixed this morning for November.The most leading datapoint, permits, increased 86,000 on an...
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Jobless claims: with a dash of seasonality salt, trending towards weakness
- by New Deal democratAs expected, jobless claims declined from one week ago, as the delayed Thanksgiving week seasonality moved out of the numbers.Initial claims declined -22,000 to 220,000, while...
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Personal income and spending continue their positive trend in November, but...
- by New Deal democratAdjusted for inflation, both personal income and spending came in positive once again in November. But under the hood, the report looked a little tepid, and while it certainly...
View ArticleWeekly Indicators for December 16 - 20 at Seeking Alpha
- by New Deal democratMy “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.The yield curve is now almost entirely un-inverted, but in part because longer term interest rates have risen (not such a good...
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Sales of new and existing homes increased in November; declining price trend...
- by New Deal democratIve been looking at new and existing home sales more in tandem recently, as we are looking for a rebalancing of the market, with prices abating in existing home sales and...
View ArticleMerry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate!
- by New Deal democratLast night we celebrated with the traditional Christmas Eve pastime of viewing “Die Hard.”Regular economic blogging will resume tomorrow with the release of weekly jobless claims.
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Initial jobless claims continue neutral trend, while continuing claims make a...
- by New Deal democratThis Christmas week initial claims declined -1,000 to 219,000. The four week average rose 1,000 to 226,500. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims 46,000 to 1.910...
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Repeast sales ouse prices show signs of re-acceleration in the last data of 2024
- by New Deal democratI was on vacation through the weekend, and since there has been no significant economic data in the post-Christmas lull, I decided to continue to play hooky. After tomorrow, on...
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The final jobless claims report of 2024 is good weekly, but the trend...
- by New Deal democratWelcome to 2025! The data this year starts out with jobless claims for the last week of 2024, which of course is heavily influenced by seasonality.The news was mainly good this...
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More worrisome signs as construction spending, especially for residential...
- by New Deal democratLast month I started by report on construction spending by writing “ Construction spending for October also came in generally positive. On a nominal basis, total construction...
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