I wonder if Trim Tabs will write a report on what the Daily Treasury Statement is showing so far this month? Details below.
Monthly data showed more strong gains in industrial production, as manufacturing is indeed having a V-shaped recovery. The Empire State and Philly Fed indices were also good. Housing starts and permits were higher than expected, and are positive year over year now (another data point that pessimists won't be able to cite anymore). Producer prices increased more than expected, but consumer prices were sedate, and core prices turned negative for the first time in almost 30years, mainly due to the now-downside distortions of Owners' Equivalent Rent.
Turning to the high-frequency weekly data ....
The ICSC reported that for the week ending February 13, YoY same store sales declined -0.7%. Week over week they declined -1.6%.
Similarly, Shoppertrak reported that:
ShopperTrak’s National Retail Sales Estimate™ (NRSE) today reported that year-over-year GAFO retail sales slipped 2.4 percent for the week ending Feb. 13 while sales increased 8.8 percent versus the previous week ending Feb. 6.The E.I.A. reported that gas prices fell to $2.62 a gallon, the lowest in several months. Weekly gasoline usage and continues to be lower than last year, and worse, continues to decline whereas last year it was increasing. This may be a harbinger of high prices causing consumer retrenchment, or it may also just be the east coast blizzards. Oil prices closed out the week at about $80, another disheartening development.
The company’s data shows snowstorms across the Midwest, South and East slowed spending early last week, only to improve later as consumers dug out....
Railfax reports that both cyclical and intermodal traffic continues to run ahead of last week in 2009, although those and also baseline traffic declined last week vs. rising last year.
The BLS reported new jobless claims of 473,000, causing some concern by among others my co-blogger Bonddad about a break in the pattern. Personally, I see no break from the longer term patter established beginning last April, although I very much want to see declines from 480,000 in the next couple of weeks.
Finally, as promised, the best has been saved for last. In a continuing surprise, and exactly as NOT promised by Trim Tabs, as of February 17, withholding taxes are running ahead of this month last year for the second week in a row: $95.8B in 2010 vs. $94.0B in 2009. There are 7 reporting days left in the month. This will be very interesting to watch....
6 comments:
Total withholding taxes for the Federal Treasury have been down between 7.8% and 8.6% year over year over the last three weeks. Adjusting for the Obama stimulus tax cuts, withholding tax revenues are down 4.6% to 5.6% year over year.
There has been a very slight improvement in withholding taxes since early December; however, that is due to the huge dropoffs in December 2008 and January and early February 2009, rather than in any real improvement in December 2009 and January and early February 2010.
Anon 2:13:
Looking at a rolling 365 day total, which seems to be what you are doing, is imo a poor way to judge the direction of withholding taxes and by proxy employment. It lags badly.
Let's assume that taxes now are 8% less (on a 365 day basis) than taxes a year ago. It makes a huge difference whether, for example, 6 months ago the YoY taxes withheld were +10% and the %ages have been going down since then, or at -20% 6 months ago, and the %ages have been going up since then.
Railfax shows data that way, among other ways, and it was exactly the kind of comparison you seem to be advocating that caused Mish to declare that the bottom was following out in transportaton last May -- exactly at the bottom.
Anyway, that is why I look at comparisons by month.
Maybe I am misconstruing the metric you are using, and if so I am all ears. Feel free to post some of your numbers and how derived from the Daily Treasury Statement if that will help.
Does anybody know the statistical correlation of the Trim Tabs data to nonfarm payroll employment or the unemployment rate????
It is interesting that Haver Analytics ( who puts a lot of stock
into statistical correlations) doesn't seem to follow tax withholding.....
A comment about jobless claims....
The 52 week moving average of nonseasonally adjusted jobless claims minus the California jobless claims has dropped 7.1% from its high in November.California jobless claims
by themselves are only .3% from its high made in January.California
is the linchpin for an economic recovery.
Here's something I haven't looked at for a long time, but the Conference Board's Help Wanted Online Index has jumped markedly the last two months. (I decided to look after recently noticing more help wanted ads--and for decent jobs too, not min wage--in our local newspaper.)
The index now stands above the Nov 2008 level. Actual net hiring soon to come?
Uncle Toby.....Thanks for the heads up
on the Help Wanted Online Index.....very interesting....year over year new ads now positive...
next release is on March 1st.....
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