Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

Weekly Indicators for October 1 – 5 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Unsurprisingly, the big story this week was the jump in interest rates. As always, clicking on the link and reading the post is not only informative, but helps put a little cash in my wallet.

September jobs report: a mixed report with different implications in different timeframes HEADLINES: +134,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate declined -0.2% from 3.9% to 3.7% U6 underemployment rate rose from 7.4% to 7.5% Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now:  declined -152,000 from 5.379 million to 5.237 million Part time for economic reasons:...

The simple Fed funds + payrolls leading indicator: autumn update While we are waiting for tomorrow’s jobs report, let me update my alternative Fed funds + payrolls leading indicator for the economy, which I debuted earlier this year. This was the result of looking for an interest rate indicator that did not rely upon the yield curve. This indicator is really simple, and what it predicts is, if the Fed fate rises YoY by as much as the YoY% change in jobs...

September auto sales were the worst (economic reporting) in a long time I don’t think I have seen as badly, or worse, outright misleading reporting in a long time as I have seen concerning September auto sales. Almost all of the stories — and especially the Doomish punditry that dominates the clickbait econoblogosphere — have seized on the BIG BIG DOWNTURN!!! in auto sales YoY, varying between a -5.6% decline (“So, all in all it was a lousy month”) to...

by New Deal democrat August residential construction spending declines Yesterday construction spending for August was reported. While overall spending rose very slightly, residential construction fell -0.7%. The big issue with housing this year is whether higher mortgage rates and higher prices are leading merely to a deceleration of growth, or to an actual turning point.  Yesterday’s report adds to the evidence that it is the latter rather than the...

Trump’s trade war isn’t hurting manufacturing . . . yet The Trump Administration’s trade war hasn’t hurt manufacturing and production yet. At least that’s the message from this morning’s ISM report on manufacturing. According to the ISM: The September PMI®registered 59.8 percent, a decrease of 1.5 percentage points from the August reading of 61.3 percent. The New Orders Index registered 61.8 percent, a decrease of 3.3 percentage points from the August...

2018 Arctic sea ice minimum As I may possibly have mentioned once or twice before, I am a total nerd.  One of the web sites I watch is NSIDC’s site tracking arctic sea ice.  To be honest, I’m a little surprised that it is still functioning, since the Trump Administration believes that climate change is just a Chinese hoax, so I thought they would take it down almost immediately after coming into office.  Guess they haven’t found it yet! Anyway, if...

I Was Wrong: US-Mexico Trade Deal Lives With Canada: USMCA Rarher Than NAFTA At the last minute last night the US and Canada cut a deal, so now Canada is on on the deal to change NAFTA to USMCA.  I think the name change is the biggest part of it, even though Trump still claims that NAFTA was “the worst trade deal ever” and the new deal makes relatively minor changes in it, especially if one considers what would have been the case if the US had actually...

Housing: comprehensive review of August reports – by New Deal democratI pay particular attention to housing because it is ian important long leading indicator for the economy. And more and more evidence is accumulating  — although it is not universal — that housing may have passed its peak in this cycle. Last year housing was resued by an autumn surge. I don’t think that will happen this year, but there are conflicting signals. My comprehensive review of...

The *rate* of new jobless claims, at all-time lows, forecasts even lower unemployment I thought I’d start out with something I haven’t looked at in awhile: initial jobless claims as a share of the population and as a leading indicator for the unemployment rate. This economic expansion has featured two contrary extremes in the labor market: low wage growth and increasingly vanishing layoffs (I don’t think that’s a coincidence, but that’s a subject for...