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,...
Read More »July retail sales: gas and vehicle sales continue to dominate the trend
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...
Read More »New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for August 7 – 11
Weekly Indicators for August 7 – 11 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. For the moment we are in something of a holding pattern, in particular with the coincident indicators. Buoyed by the big downturn in commodity prices, and somnolence of consumer prices ex-fictitious shelter, the short leading indicators continue to be much more positive. As usual, clicking over and reading will...
Read More »New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for August 7 – 11
Weekly Indicators for August 7 – 11 at Seeking Alpha – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. For the moment we are in something of a holding pattern, in particular with the coincident indicators. Buoyed by the big downturn in commodity prices, and somnolence of consumer prices ex-fictitious shelter, the short leading indicators continue to be much more positive. As usual, clicking over and reading will...
Read More »What to look for in tomorrow’s CPI and Friday’s PPI
What to look for in tomorrow’s CPI and Friday’s PPI – by New Deal democrat We’re still in the post-jobs report lull in economic news today. That will end tomorrow with initial jobless claims, and also CPI and PPI tomorrow and Friday respectively. I always watch CPI, but I believe the PPI is uniquely important at present as well. To show you why, let me show you the YoY relationship between PPI and CPI for the past 75 years in two...
Read More »What to look for in tomorrow’s CPI and Friday’s PPI
What to look for in tomorrow’s CPI and Friday’s PPI – by New Deal democrat We’re still in the post-jobs report lull in economic news today. That will end tomorrow with initial jobless claims, and also CPI and PPI tomorrow and Friday respectively. I always watch CPI, but I believe the PPI is uniquely important at present as well. To show you why, let me show you the YoY relationship between PPI and CPI for the past 75 years in two...
Read More »Coronavirus special update: the annual summer wave has arrived
Coronavirus special update: the annual summer wave has arrived – by New Deal democrat As I wrote at the beginning of this year, I would only post Coronavirus updates if there appeared to be something significant happening. And there is. There is a completely new alphabet soup of XBB subvariants that are competing with one another, and one of them, EG.5.1, has been surging in a number of countries worldwide and is now the fastest growing...
Read More »Coronavirus special update: the annual summer wave has arrived
Coronavirus special update: the annual summer wave has arrived – by New Deal democrat As I wrote at the beginning of this year, I would only post Coronavirus updates if there appeared to be something significant happening. And there is. There is a completely new alphabet soup of XBB subvariants that are competing with one another, and one of them, EG.5.1, has been surging in a number of countries worldwide and is now the fastest growing...
Read More »Scenes from the July employment report
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,...
Read More »Scenes from the July employment report
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,...
Read More »