The September payroll report continues a string of repetitious unevenness that is the hallmark of these types of economic periods. The economy seems to appear strong then weak and then strong again so that just when “everyone” is ready to put the weakness behind, it disappoints all over again. It is a seemingly confusing condition made more so by especially [...]
The pace of new home sales fell again in August according to the National Association of Realtors. On a seasonally-adjusted annual basis, the rate of resales registered 5.33 million compared to 5.38 million in July and 5.29 million in August 2015. The growth rate on sales has clearly slowed, and the NAR itself finds that curious in light of supposed [...]
It follows that if we find production dropping into a two-year slump, sales are likely the cause. Retail sales continue to be just as stuck as the rest of the economy, an economic limbo between growth and recession with far more of recession than growth. After suffering one of the worst months in July, retail sales bounced back in August [...]
In all honesty, I could start almost any piece I write with the phrase “economists are stumped.” It has become something of a baseline where there is some element or condition of the global economy that doesn’t make sense to them. The latest update in JOLTS for July continues to be faithful to the seeming contradiction. By view of the [...]
Factory orders rose in July in seasonally-adjusted terms from a downward revised June level. As has been the case with a number of economic data points this summer, that was a drastically different result than the unadjusted comparison. Since only the narrowest monthly interpretation makes it into most commentary about the economy, let alone manufacturing, the headlines leave a lot [...]
The Federal Reserve’s Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI) fell to contraction again in August. After rebounding in July for the first positive reading of 2016, the LMCI dropped to -0.7 in the latest update. As usual, revisions have reshaped the levels of indicated problems throughout the past two years, but overall the trend remains. From this view of the labor [...]
In the technical notes for the Employment Situation Report, the payroll numbers that everyone obsesses over in fine detail, the BLS still shows a 90% confidence interval at 1.6 standard deviations that works out to +/- 115k. That means that whatever number gets splashed onto every headline and worked into every major commentary piece isn’t really the number of payroll [...]
One of the articles referenced in Janet Yellen’s Jackson Hole speech last week was a piece written for the Peterson Institute for International Economics by Senior Fellow Olivier Blanchard. Dr. Blanchard has, as noted earlier today, all the “right” credentials, which is why his conjecture gets included into the speeches of Federal Reserve Chairmen. Having taught at both Harvard and [...]
Second quarter 2016 GDP was revised slightly lower, from about 1.21% to just 1.09%. That changes nothing from the preliminary estimate, as real GDP has averaged now only 0.93% over the past three quarters since last summer’s major, global disruption. Since the FOMC declared risks “balanced” and heading toward “overheating” in late 2014, economic growth as measured by GDP has [...]
The contradictory nature of the real estate market continues to be exhibited in resales as well as new construction. Though sales of new homes jumped, resales fell. Since last June, the level of contracts for the sale of existing homes has been stuck around 5.4 million SAAR. That was about the same rate of activity as reached at the height [...]
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