Tag Archives: US EConomics

Coronavirus dashboard for March 28: I’ll take the “under” for the severity of any BA.2 wave Very few US States reported over the weekend. The decline in new cases has stalled at roughly 30,000 per day. Deaths are still declining, and are currently just below 800 per day. Since the BA.2 variant continues to generate new headlines, with just about everybody warning of a new wave in the US, let’s take a look at what actually happened in Europe...

An update on the yield curve This is an update on my yield curve post from earlier this week.As had happened in the previous few days, the 3 to 5 year Treasury yield spread, which was inverted intraday, un-inverted by the close of the trading day. Here is what the US Treasury yield curve looked like yesterday: As you can see, it is kinked at the 7 and 20 year maturities. Aside from that, from Fed funds out through 30 years it has a more...

The housing market’s downward turn begins: new home sales in February, plus a comment about affordability As of this morning Mortgage News Daily shows the 30 year mortgage rate up to 4.72%, 1.9% higher than their lows 15 months ago, and the highest in four years. That means the housing market is in some serious trouble. Let’s take a look at that via this morning’s new home sales report for January. First, a reminder, that new home sales:...

The US Treasury yield curve is on the verge of inverting My graphing issue hasn’t resolved yet. Fortunately there is no big new economic news today, and there is something I’ve been following with particular interest in the past week that doesn’t require any graphing: namely, the Treasury bond yield curve is on the verge of inverting. Normally, we should expect to see increasing yields the longer the maturity. This is pretty simple stuff: if I...

January 2021 finds 14.5 million people having healthcare plans due to Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act. As commenter “Arne” pointed out, this represents an increase of ~2.98 million more people insured under the ACA. Even the other Joe voted for it. Manchin that is. Kind of catching up with old news here. Earlier this year mid- January (some states end enrollment at the end of January), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)...

RJS, MarketWatch 666 Retail Sales Rose 0.3 % in February After January’s Sales were Revised 1.0% Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased 0.3% in February after retail sales for January were revised 1.0% higher . . . the Advance Retail Sales Report for February (above) from the Census Bureau estimated our seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales totaled $658.1 billion during the month, which was 0.3 percent (±0.5%)*...

1974 Redux?  The stock of Thomas Robert Malthus rises and falls with the real price of food. He was not the inventor of his theory of population, a point that Karl Marx threw at him among other criticisms, with such people as James Anderson and Benjamin Franklin preceding him with pretty much the entiretly of his theory. But his timing was much better, publishing the flawed first edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, a year...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The economic indicators are coming under pressure from both ends. The long leading indicators are being buffetted by inflation and the Fed, as interest rates generally rise, and the yield curve gets very tight. Meanwhile the coincident and short leading indicators have been hit by the exogenous event of the war in...

Housing permits and starts: still an economic positive – for the moment As you know, I consider housing, and in particular single-family housing permits, one of the very best long leading indicators for the economy. In the past year, however, there has been a unique divergence between housing permits and housing starts, necessitating some adjustments. In the past year, permits soared then sank, while starts held much more steady. The explanation...

Industrial production nowcasts that the economy continues to perform well Industrial production increased in February by 0.5%, its highest reading ever with the exception of two months in 2014, and the second half of 2018. Manufacturing production  increased 1.2%, also its highest ever with the exception of 24 months from late 2006 through early 2008:Of course, considering population and GDP growth in the past 15 years, this is hardly...