The labor market is softening, but still strong. Disclaimer: This information is presented for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy any investment products. None of the information herein constitutes an investment recommendation, investment advice or an investment outlook. The opinions and conclusions contained in this report [...]
Overall, the employment pictures remains healthy. Higher frequency weekly initial claims are trending in the right direction (lower). Aggregate hours worked are still growing at 2.2% YOY. While positive the growth in total hours worked continues to slow all be it at a lesser rate of decline. This will be a factor to watch in the coming months. The accelerated [...]
Maybe last Friday’s pretty awful payroll report shouldn’t have been surprising; though, to be fair, just calling it awful will be surprising to most people. Confusion surrounds the figures for good reason, though there truly is no reason for the misunderstanding itself. Apart from Economists and “central bankers” who’d rather everyone look elsewhere for the real problem. The Establishment Survey [...]
This will be written off as a temporary setback, and only then will anyone care if it follows in Friday’s payroll report. Just when the FOMC was counting on corroboration among all labor market data for its taper/balance sheet runoff/rate hike justification, this morning ADP threw a whole sack of wrenches in those plans. In the wake of the sack, [...]
If everything was going to plan, non-standard monetary policy at the zero lower bound (QE) would have raised inflation expectations increasing the level of aggregate demand as businesses and consumers ramped up their activities in anticipation of higher costs. The more this “overheating” goes on, the more forceful it becomes. Eventually, by virtue of the Phillips Curve, aggregate demand is [...]
There is no argument that the New Deal of the 1930’s completely changed the political situation in America, including the fundamental relationship of the government to its people. The way it came about was entirely familiar, a sense from among a large (enough) portion of the general population that the paradigm of the time no longer worked. It was only [...]
Can we finally put to rest all notions that the US economy is at full employment and doing well, and therefore wage inflation is right around the corner? I suspect not. This dance has been ongoing for years now, continuing through what was nearly a recession, so there is little reason to believe that economists are so data dependent. The [...]
The payroll report for August 2017 thoroughly disappointed. The monthly change for the headline Establishment Survey was just +156k. The BLS also revised lower the headline estimate in each of the previous two months, estimating for July a gain of only +189k. The 6-month average, which matters more given the noisiness of the statistic, is just +160k or about the [...]
Activist hedge fund manager Bill Ackman succeeded in 2013 in ousting Procter & Gamble’s CEO Bob McDonald. It was noteworthy at the time because the company issued a strange memo repeating often verbatim answers to questions it posed to itself. Among them was if Mr. McDonald was fired or, as had been relayed publicly, he voluntarily retired. The memo merely [...]
In late 1999, the Federal Reserve established what was ostensibly an emergency credit facility. On October 1 that year, this offshoot of the Discount Window went live. Its main feature was that it was to be a primary program, meaning that banks didn’t have to prove they could access funds elsewhere first. They could go there freely without fear of [...]
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