Tag Archives: Hot Topics

Continuing claims near 2+ year high; likely the effect of Silicon Valley layoffs  – by New Deal democrat Initial claims rose by 9,000 to a three month high of 224,000 last week. The four-week moving average also rose 5,350 to 207,750. With the usual one-week lag, however, continuing claims rose sharply, by 70,000, to 1.898 million, close to a 2+ year high: On the more important YoY% change basis, initial claims were up 12.6%, while the...

December JOLTS report: while hiring has weakened, firing (and quitting) continue to show a strong labor market  – by New Deal democrat Yesterday’s JOLTS report for December showed a labor market that, while decelerating, remains relatively strong. Let me start with layoffs and discharges, which increased by 85,000 to 1.616 million (blue in the graph below). This is nevertheless about average for the past year, and as usual mirrors the...

Repeat home sale prices continue rebound; rents continue decline  – by New Deal democrat Since the Fed started raising interest rates almost two years ago, homebuilding has shifted away from single family houses to condos and apartments, the construction of which has made repeated all-time highs. This has become reflected in house price vs. apartment rental indices. Starting with apartment rents, according to the Apartment List National...

Both production and transportation are down from 2022 peaks; why wasn’t that enough to cause a recession?  – by New Deal democrat While I have written about how the Index of Leading Indicators failed last year, as the loosening of and disinflation in supply chains overwhelmed the effects of Fed tightening, it wasn’t as if Fed tightening had no effect. In fact in the typical places where we would first expect to find those effects – namely, in...

Mission of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs The following is Mark Cuban’s pitch on supply drugs. If you do not have healthcare insurance which pays for drugs you more than likely going to pay list unless you have a drug store discount such as GoodRx. Mark Cuban talking pharmaceuticals and costs: We started Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company because every American should have access to safe, affordable medicines. If you don’t have insurance or have a...

The single most significant thing Republicans could do to reduce undocumented immigration is to require E-Verify for all hires and jail employers who don’t use it or who hire in spite of it. Why not use this?“At the same time, ordinary economic migrants could be most effectively dealt with via E-Verify. If you make it hard to hire undocumented workers, they’ll stop coming. The problem is that even immigration hawks tend to downplay this because it...

Weekly Indicators for January 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Every now and then the data has a particularly noisy week, and this past week seems to have been one, as a number of – especially coincident – indicators hit an air pocket. Perhaps more concerning is that the 4 week total of tax withholding YoY has gone negative again. But consumer spending, in both nominal and...

AB: I am cheating and giving you the close to the last line in NDd’s report. You really should read NDd’s report in its entirety. A three minute read? “this month’s report continues to reflect a consumer economy that is doing very well.” December 2023 personal income and spending: Goldilocks is in the house UPDATED  – by New Deal democrat [Note: The St. Louis FRED site is down for maintenance, which means unfortunately there are no...

Trump’s poor showing in New Hampshire, Robert Reich. Friends, As I noted earlier today, the mainstream media is falling over itself in seeming awe of Trump’s “powerful” campaign. The truth is just the opposite. Last week, he won fewer than 7 percent of registered voters in Iowa. Trump’s success in last week’s Iowa caucuses wasn’t a “stunning show of strength.” It was a display of remarkable weakness. He got just 56,260 votes. Hello?...

Core capital goods orders, three month average of manufacturers’ new orders both make new all-time highs  – by New Deal democrat Before I update this morning’s personal income and spending data, I wanted to briefly note some significant news in yesterday’s report on manufacturers new orders. (I’ll discuss the important leading metrics from the GDP report next week.) New orders are one of the long-time components of the index of leading...