Tag Archives: July 2023

In housing construction, the last domino still refuses to fall: Travelin’ Man edition  – by New Deal democrat [First, a blogging note: I will be traveling for the next week and a half. I’ll keep posting the data, but the posts are likely to be brief, and may be a day late. On days when there is no data, I will probably not post at all.] When it comes to housing construction, I’ve been waiting for the last domino to fall. Once again in July,...

July retail sales: gas and vehicle sales continue to dominate the trend  – by New Deal democrat As always, real retail sales tell us a great deal about what is happening in the consumer economy. July continued the recent trend since gas prices started declining over a year ago. Nominally retail sales increased 0.7%. Since consumer prices increased 0.2%, real retail sales increased 0.5%. Here they are compared with real personal expenditures...

Scenes from the July employment report  – by New Deal democrat On Friday I noted that the July employment report was a perfectly good, solid one in absolute terms, but that almost all the leading components were soft and weakening, as I would expect to see near the final stages of an expansion. Let’s take a look with some graphs today. First, the good news. The employment population ratio for the prime age working group, ages 25-54,...

Scenes from the July employment report  – by New Deal democrat On Friday I noted that the July employment report was a perfectly good, solid one in absolute terms, but that almost all the leading components were soft and weakening, as I would expect to see near the final stages of an expansion. Let’s take a look with some graphs today. First, the good news. The employment population ratio for the prime age working group, ages 25-54,...

Weekly Indicators for July 31 – August 4, and long term forecast through H1 2024 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. No big changes in the data, but note that mortgage and other interest rates are up close to their peaks. This will operate to slow down growth in the housing market among other things. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment, and...

Weekly Indicators for July 31 – August 4, and long term forecast through H1 2024 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. No big changes in the data, but note that mortgage and other interest rates are up close to their peaks. This will operate to slow down growth in the housing market among other things. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment, and...

July jobs report: almost across the board deterioration in leading sectors  – 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. Almost all of these items did deteriorate in July. Here’s my in-depth synopsis....

July jobs report: almost across the board deterioration in leading sectors  – 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. Almost all of these items did deteriorate in July. Here’s my in-depth synopsis....

Weekly Indicators for July 17 – 21 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.  At least when it comes to weekly measures of consumer spending, the “waiting for godot” recession seems to have finally arrived. Meanwhile other metrics have been picking up steam as to the near future. This suggests a period of wobbling ahead. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual...

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 four week average up 10.6%, and continuing claims up 30.8%: Just as importantly, the average for July so far...