In addition to the very good (relatively speaking of course) Initial Jobless Claims report this morning (see below), there were 4 other economic releases pushed up to today due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Two were good, two not so good.
Personal income and spending were both up:
Personal income increased $30.1 billion, or 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI)increased $45.7 billion, or 0.4 percent, in October, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $68.3 billion, or 0.7 percent. In September, personal income increased $20.7 billion, or 0.2 percent, DPI increased $21.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, and PCE decreased $60.3 billion, or 0.6 percent, based on revised estimates.
Real disposable income increased 0.2 percent in October, compared with an increase of 0.1 percent in September. Real PCE increased 0.4 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.7 percent.
Shorter good news: consumers have more to spend, and they are spending it. This is necessary for job creation.
Additionally, New Home Sales rose 6.2 percent to an annual pace of 430,000, the highest level since September 2008, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The median sales price fell 0.5 percent and the number of unsold homes reached a four-decade low.
On the other hand, the University of Michigan "index of consumer expectations fell 2.1 points to 66.5. This is an upward revision from the 63.7 reported in early November, which economists were expecting would be revised to 64.0." This is a leading economic indicator, and while better than most of this year, is still worse than September or October, so this will be a negative.
The other bad news was that orders for durable goods fell during October:
New orders for manufactured durable goods in
October decreased $1.0 billion or 0.6 percent to $166.2
billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This
was the second monthly decrease in the last three
months. This followed a 2.0 percent September
increase. Excluding transportation, new orders
decreased 1.3 percent. Excluding defense, new orders
increased 0.4 percent.
Despite that, the portion of the durable goods orders that is considered one of the 10 Leading Economic Indicators was up:
Nondefense new orders for capital goods in October
increased $0.6 billion or 1.2 percent to $54.6 billion.
There is some evidence (see, e.g., Invictus' post about the CMI, as well as the American Trucking Association's Index) that manufacturing may have stalled in October. We'll find out a lot more on Monday with the ISM report. Despite that, the majority of the reports are good.
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P.S. While you are doing your annual post-Thanksgiving imitation of a beached whale on Friday, belly up to the computer, because I will be posting the regular "Weekly Indicators" then as usual.
