August JOLTS report shows a labor market stabilized in a sideways low hire, low fire trend

 

 - by New Deal democrat

This morning’s other economic report was the JOLTS labor market report for August. This parses turnover in the market by hires, layoffs, and quits, among other things. It is a minor indicator, but let’s take a look.

The first graph below shows the “soft statistic” of job openings (blue), actual hires (red), and quits (gold), all normed to 100 as of just before the pandemic:

What is most noteworthy about this is that both hires and quits have had a sideways trend for the past two years - and that trend continued in August, as both numbers were basically right in the middle of that trend. Only the “soft” metric of openings has had a slightly increasing trend this year (although I didn’t run the historical graph, the fact is that outside of recessions, openings have had an upward trend for the past 25 years). Additionally, note both hires and quits have been running below their level of 2019.

Here is the same graph for layoffs:

Layoffs have been running at close to their lowest post-pandemic levels over the past nine months, and their declining trend since late last year is of a piece with what we have been seeing in the very low level of initial and continuing jobless claims each week.

Also, let’s update the comparison of the quits rate (blue, right scale), which has been suggested to lead YoY average hourly wages (red, left scale):

Like the number of hires and quits, for the past year the quits rate has been close to completely flat. That argues that *nominally* average hourly wages YoY should be stabilizing at a 3.4%-3.5% rate. In fact, if YoY average hourly earnings continue to decelerate in this Friday’s jobs report, that would call into question the above relationship.

But the general takeaway from this report is a jobs sector that has normalized in a low hire, low fire trend.

Repeat home sales price indexes continue recent trend of increasing YoY

 

 - by New Deal democrat

The current economic cycle has not just, as I explained yesterday, busted the infallibility of the inverted yield curve as an indicator, it has also blown up Prof. Edward Leamer’s theory “housing *is* the economic cycle.” But while no metric is perfect, it remains the case that housing is an important long leading sector, and house prices are an important component of the economy, particularly as they affect the official CPI measure downstream (not to mention their impact on ordinary buyers and sellers). And the repeat home sales indexes, by S&P Case Shiller and the FHFA, are the best indicator of prices in the 90% of the market that is existing home sales. same.

In the last few months, prices in both indexes have appeared to be firming, and that continued to be the case in this morning’s reports. After several months of decline, the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller National index (blue in the graphs below) rose 0.1% for the three month period ending in July, while the FHFA index (red) rose 0.3%. Significantly, the FHFA index, which typically slightly leads the Case Shiller one, has been relatively “hot” compared to the latter. [Note: FRED has not yet updated the Case Shiller data]:

Earlier this year I noted that “there is something of a divergence showing in the YoY comparisons of the two national indexes,” as the Case Shiller national index had increased less than 1% YoY, while the FHFA Index had accelerated to a 2.0% increase. In the past several months, however, the Case Shiller index has also “warmed up” somewhat. In July, on a YoY% basis, the Case Shiller national index increased from 1.6% to 1.9%, a 12 month high, and the YoY% change in the FHFA index also increased from 2.3% to 2.6%, a 10 month high:

In stark contrast, as I wrote last week, the three month average of the YoY% change in the median price for new homes has declined to -2.6%, the biggest three month average YoY decline in two years. This is almost certainly a byproduct of homebuilders “meeting the market” while individual home sellers continue to resist taking losses (although I note a number of stories in the past month indicating that the percent of price reductions in existing homes for sale has been increasing dramatically).

Next, let’s take a look at how new (purple, right scale, averaged quarterly to cut down on noise (thick) and monthly (thin)) and repeat home prices (left scale) compare with households’ buying power, by adjusting for average hourly nonsupervisory earnings in the graphs below (median household income would be better, but is updated only once a year, and average wages are reasonably close for these purposes).

Last week I wrote that, deflated by average weekly earnings, the purchase price for new homes was less in “real” terms than at any point in the last 15 years except for one month during the COVID lockdowns. Applying the same deflator, existing homes as measured by both the Case Shiller and FHFA indexes, have become “less unaffordable” over the past 24 months. In July, average weekly earnings increased 0.3%, meaning that the “real” Case Shiller index declined further, while in “real” terms the FHFA index remained steady. The former has declined -4.6% in real terms since its recent peak in January 2025, while the latter has declined -3.1%. Nevertheless, as I wrote last month, it will take considerably more inventory on the market to bring existing homes down to just their average affordability compared with the past 30 years.

Finally, a reminder that the Fed’s interest rate hike and the similar increase in mortgage rates suggests that the recent equilibrium in the market is probably going to be yanked to the downside.

Another infallible economic indicator bites the dust: inverted yield curve edition

 

 - by New Deal democrat

No big economic data today. So let’s take a look at a significant forecasting tool. Some leading indicators are very good. But none is infallible. And the last few years have slain one of the most-touted for infallibility: the inverted yield curve.

For those who need a brief refresher, typically the longer the term of a bond, the more interest an investor will require for taking the risk of lending their money to the borrower for a longer period of time. Thus we typically expect a 30 year Treasury to yield more than a 10 year, and both to yield more than a 5 year, all three to yield more than a 2 year, and all of the above to yield more than a 3 month Treasury bill. That is called a normal, or regularized, yield curve.

But sometimes - typically but not necessarily always when the Fed is raising interest rates - the yield curve behaves abnormally, with some shorter duration Treasuries like the 3 month or 2 year durations paying more interest that longer duration Treasuries like the 10 year. That is called an inverted yield curve.

And for the past 50 years, it has been thought that an inverted yield curve means recession ahead.

Until now.

First, let me show you the historical record of the two most common measures of the yield curve: the 10 year minus 2 year treasury yield (blue) and the 10 year minus 3 month yield (red) since 1980:

The former measure doesn’t go back further, but the 10 year minus 3 month can be charted all the way back to the early 1960s:

So let’s summarize what we see. With the exception of the COVID lockdowns, which may never have been a recession otherwise, before every recession in the past 60 years, both measures of the yield curve above had inverted. About half the time, the 10 year minus 2 year had also re-normalized before the onset of the recession. And so in most cases had the 10 year minus 3 month comparison.

Astute observers will note that on one historical occasion there was a failure: during the 1966 “guns & butter” economy of LBJ, there was an inversion but no recession for another 3.5 years.

And, as I will document below, there has been a failure in this decade as well. 

The 10 year minus 2 year metric has almost always inverted first. The shortest period of time between inversion and recession has been 10 months (1980) while the longest has been 19 months (1990). The median period has been 15 months.

But the 10 year minus 2 year spread inverted in July 2022, a full 50 months ago (and counting). That’s almost triple the amount of time between the longest previous period of inversion to recession.

Similarly, going back to the 1960s, the shortest period of time between inversion of the 10 year minus 3 month spread has been 8months (2001) while the longest has been 25 months (1980). The median period has been 13 months.

But this decade the 10 year minus 3 month spread inverted in November 2022, 38 months ago, 1.5* more than even the longest such time in the past 50 years.

But, some have said, the real danger point is after the spread has re-normalized, pointing to all of the past times when a recession has begun after that normalization.

To begin with, about half the time no such re-normalization has occurred. So this metric appears to be random noise. But further, it relies upon an unstated assumption that the yield curve inversion is infallible. In other words, once there is an inversion, the recession will come either before or after a re-normalization, but it *must* come.

Well, certainly there is always another recession in the future *sometime,* but let’s see how this metric pans out as well.

The 10 year minus 2 year spread only un-inverted 3 times before recessions: by 2 months in 2001, 4 months in 2007, and 9 months in 1990. But this decade it un-inverted in August 2024, 25 months ago - almost 3* the maximum previous length of time.

And the 10 year minus 3 month spread un-inverted 7 previous times, with a duration of 1 month before at the least (2001) and 6 months before at the most (1990 and 2007). But this time around, measured monthly, it un-inverted in December 2024, 21 months ago, more than 3* the maximum previous duration. Even measured weekly it has been un-inverted for almost 12 months.

Only if we include the 1966 inversions and date them in comparison with the 1970 recession can we find any analogy, for the 10 year minus 3 month spread could be said to invert 42 months before the recession, and un-invert 25 months before. At present we are already past the former period, and only 4 months away from the latter. I submit that a “leading indicator” that takes almost half a decade to come to fruition is not an indicator at all.

So, if the inverted yield curve is busted as an infallible indicator, do I still plan to track it? Yes, because its past record is still good, and I use it only as part of a constellation of such indicators with good records that go back many years.

In which regard, let me give you the same graph, but over the past two years:

While the 10 year minus 3 month spread has continued to widen, the 10 year minus 2 year spread has narrowed again, most recently briefly to only 0.25%. Keep in mind from the above that the 10 year minus 2 year has almost always inverted first. And once it has narrowed to only 25 basis points, it typically has gone on in the near future to an inversion.

In other words, while the yield curve, like every other indicator, is not infallible, in a few months the clock might start ticking again.

 

Weekly Indicators for September 21 - 25 at Seeking Alpha

 

 - by New Deal democrat

My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.

There are two big, and opposing, forces pulling the economy in opposite directions. On the one hand, there are the stagflationary effects of the oil price spike, and the secular sharp increase in bond yields. On the other, there is the Boom in AI related investment. Those two opposing forces are very much in evidence in most of the high frequency indicators.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to how these forces are showing up in the US economy, and bring me a penny or two in lunch money for my efforts.

Despite everything in Washington, manufacturing is Booming

 - by New Deal democrat

One of the things I occasionally pat myself on the back about is spotting new trends first. Such was the case one year ago, in the midst of the “mini-recession,” noticing that the regional Feds’ manufacturing indexes, which had languished for several years, were turning positive. Thus began the theme of an AI data center construction driven manufacturing rebound.

This year that trend has continued and even intensified. Which brings us to this morning’s report on durable goods orders for August.

The headline number for new durable goods orders by manufacturers (blue) was unchanged, but the much less noisy core capital goods number (red) increased a sharp 1.6%. The latter made a new all time high, as did the three month average (which takes out most of the noise) of the former. In the graph below, both are normed to 100 as of their pre-pandemic expansion highs in 2018:

And that’s not all. On a YoY% basis, new orders increased 8.5%, while core capital goods orders were up 14.1%. The below graph subtracts those values to show the current YoY gains at the “0” line:

The current Boom in the growth of manufacturing orders is equivalent to all of the best times in the last 30+ years except for the brief white-hot immediate post-pandemic Boom.

Finally, let’s compare that with industrial production in the manufacturing sector (orange), which did decline slightly in August; but the sharply increasing trend is similar:

One of the things I have learned over the past 20+ years that I have been doing this is just how hard it is to derail the U.S. economy. When several sectors point to a sharp downturn, most often another sector comes sneaking out of the shadows to power an upturn. And so, despite the incompetence and malignancy of the current Administration, so far the economy as a whole is refusing to buckle, despite important things like real incomes for most ordinary Americans turning down.

August new home sales consistent with a housing recovery. Unfortunately . . .

 

 - by New Deal democrat

In the past few months, I have described the housing market as being in a subpar equilibrium, with sales, construction, prices, and finally inventory moving more or less sideways - but simply not at an affordable level. This month I think I need to amends that, because unlike existing homes, new home prices probably *have* declined to an affordable level.

Let me start by repeating that new home sales are perhaps the most leading of all the housing sector metrics. But they suffer from being very volatile and heavily revised. So their three month moving average is more reliable as a signal.

With that said, this morning’s new home sales report for August was yet more evidence for both of the above theses. Sales, prices, and inventory all generally stayed on their recent trend level.

Sales (blue)increased 41,000 annualized to 684,000. This was the highest single month for sales this’d year. More importantly, the three month moving average was also at its highest level this year:

Further, a bottoming in inventory (red) is something we typically see towards or even after the end of a recession. And inventory, after bottoming at the end of last year has trended sideways to slightly higher this year. Were it not for the sharp upwards trend in interest rates, this would signify a recovering housing market. Keep in minds that these sales were for August, before the latest upward push in rates, so it is likely this trend meets its untimely demise in the next month or two.

Prices also continued their sideways to slightly declining trend, increasing $1,500, or 0.4%, for the month. But since they are not seasonally adjusted, the YoY% change ids most important - and it is obvious from the graph below that, July excepted, prices are at their lowest level in nearly five years:

Although I won’t bother with the graph, the YoY% price decline was -5.8%.

Where I am revising my opinion is in terms of affordability. The below graph deflates the median price of a new home by average weekly earnings, normed to 1 as of August:

Deflated by wages, the price of a new home is at its lowest level except for one month during the COVID lockdowns in almost 15 years! Were it not for 7%+ mortgage rates, the outlook for housing would be very positive. Unfortunately . . . 

In summation, housing - and in particular new home sales - is not currently forecasting a recession. Last month I closed with “With sales relatively stable and prices slowly deflating, the new home market is meeting the existing home market in a equilibrium, which is likely to remain unless something significant happens upstream, like an increase in mortgage rates back to 7%, possibly driven by a Fed rate hike.” Both of those “significant things” have since happened. 

We live in interesting times.

Extremely low jobless claims forecast unemployment rate declining below 4%

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Let’s take our regular weekly look at jobless claims. As a reminder, I look at these because they are an excellent short leading indicator for the economy.

Last week new jobless claims declined -1,000 to 197,000, continuing its streak of number close to all time historical lows. Thew four week moving average declined -1,750 to 202,250. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims rose 2,000 to 1.719 million:

Note that initial claims in particular are close to their previous all-time post-pandemic lows set in 2022.

On the YoY% basis more important for forecasting purposes, initial claims were down -10.0%, the four week moving average down -14.6%, and continuing claims down -10.3%:

All of these are extremely positive for the economy - indeed the most positive in thew past three+ years.

Lastly, the last time initial and continuing claims were at these levels, the unemployment rate was at 3.7%-3.9%:

In other words, this forecasts that the unemployment rate will continue to decline in the next several months not just to 4.0%, but likely even lower. We’ll find out a week from tomorrow.