Weekly Indicators for March 3 - 7 at Seeking Alpha

 

 - by New Deal democrat

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

The malign and moronic “policies” of the 2nd T—-p Administration so far have driven Economic Policy Uncertain to all time record highs:

But despite that, the rumblings under the surface of the data have been quite minor so far. There are changes in the Treasury yield curve, stock market, jobless claims, commodity prices, and the US$. But aside from the first two, the moves have not been significant, and haven’t been enough to move the overall needle.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the economy, and reward me with a couple of pennies for organizing it all and presenting it to you.

February jobs report: weak employment gains, but some 3+ year highs in unemployment metrics

 

 - by New Deal democrat

My question over the past year has been whether “decleration” would turn into “deterioration.” For a “soft landing,” deceleration would need to end, and the numbers stabilize, vs. continuing to deteriorate towards an actual downturn. 

The verdict this month was mixed. On the employment side, YoY job gains have been relatively stable for the past six months, as has the three month average. But on the unemployment side, there were a number of poor readings at 3+ year highs. Additionally, real aggregate payroll growth shows continuing signs of a marked slowdown.

Below is my in depth synopsis.

HEADLINES:

• 151,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 140,000. Government jobs increased by 11,000. Noteworthily, federal jobs decreased -11,000. The three month average was an increase of +200,000.
• The pattern of downward revisions to previous months, which was broken last month, resumed ever so slightly this month. December was revised upward by 16,000, while January was revised downward  by -18,000, for a net decrease of -2,000.
• The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report, showed a decrease of -588,000 jobs. On a YoY basis, this series increased 2,294,000 jobs, or an average of 191,000 monthly.
• The U3 unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 4.1%. Since the three month average is 4.067% vs. a low of 3.733% for the three month average in the past 12 months, or an increase of less than 0.4%, this means the “Sahm rule” remains off the table. 
• The U6 underemployment rate rose sharply, by 0.5%, to 8.0%, its highest level since October 2021, and 1.6% above its low of December 2022.
• Further out on the spectrum, those who are not in the labor force but want a job now also rose a sharp 414,000 to 5.893 million, the highest number in over three years, vs. its post-pandemic low of 4.925 million in early 2023.

Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession

These are leading sectors for the economy overall, and help us gauge how much the post-pandemic employment boom is shading towards a downturn. This month they were generally positive:

• the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, rose 0.2 hours to 40.8 hours, This remains down -0.7 hours from its February 2022 peak of 41.5 hours, and is tied with last May and December for the highest reading over the past 12 months.

• Manufacturing jobs increased 10,000. Nevertheless this series is firmly in decline, as the three month average is the lowest since mid year 2022.
• Within that sector, motor vehicle manufacturing jobs rose 8,900.
• Truck driving decreased -1,900.
• Construction jobs increased another 19,000.
• Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, rose by a mere 100 to another new post-pandemic high.
• Goods producing jobs as a whole increased 34,000, and made their first post-pandemic new high since last September. This is especially important, because these typically decline before any recession occurs. On a YoY% basis, these jobs are only up 0.4%. Nevertheless, only during the 1985-86 slowdown and for 3 months during the 1990s and 2000s have manufacturing jobs had this anemic a YoY increase without a recession occurring. 

• Temporary jobs, which have declined by over -550,000 since late 2022, declined by another -12,300. But this month remained above their October 2024 low, so this may still suggest that the bottom in this metric is in. 
• the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or fewer rose 47,000 to 2,337,000, vs. its 12 month high of 2,465,000 last August.

Wages of non-managerial workers

• Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.09, or +0.3%, to $30.89, for a YoY gain of +4.1%, the highest in three months, but right in line with its average YoY% gain since last April. Importantly, this continues to be well above the 2.9% YoY inflation rate as of 3.0% last month.

Aggregate hours and wages: 

• The index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers rose 0.2%, and is equal to its post-pandemic peak set in December This measure is also up 1.1% YoY, right in line with its average for the past 12 months. 

• The index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose 0.4%, but is up 5.1% YoY, slightly above its average YoY rate in the past 12 months. On the other hand - importantly - adjusted for inflation this series will probably only be up 0.3% +/-0.1% since last September, indicating at least a slowdown in the ability of households to increase consumption.

Other significant data:

• Professional and business employment declined -2,000. These tend to be well-paying jobs. This series has been down YoY since September 2023, and is now -0.4% YoY, which in the past 80+ years - until now - has almost *always* meant recession. 
• The employment population ratio declined -0.2% to 59.9%, vs. 61.1% in February 2020.
• The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased -0.2% to 62.4%, vs. 63.4% in February 2020.

SUMMARY

This was a mixed but generally weak report. While the number of net jobs increased, and also increased in most of the leading sectors, most importantly at present in residential building construction and goods production as a whole, the numbers were not strong. The big weakness was on the unemployment side, where the unemployment rate, underemployment rate, number of newly unemployed, and those not in the labor force who want a job all increased sharply. The employment to population ratio and the labor force participation rate also declined.

Hours worked rose, but not by much; and both hourly wages and aggregate payrolls likely did little better than keeping even with inflation, although we won’t know that for sure until next week. Most concerning is the likely slowdown in aggregate real payrolls in the past five months.It isn’t negative, but it could indicate that a peak is forming.

So again, the verdict is “positive but weak.”

Jobless claims decline back into neutral territory

 

 - by New Deal democrat

After last week’s big jump, this week initial jobless claims declined -21,000 to 221,000. The four week moving average increased 250 to 224,250. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims rose 42,000 to 1.897 million:

On the more important YoY basis for forecasting purposes, initial claims were higher by 5.2%, the four week moving average was up 7.6%, and continuing claims were up 5.7%:

After last week, I think all observers were waiting to see if Federal employee layoffs would drive this series further into negative territory. This week, at least, they did not. These are all “neutral” readings, suggesting a somewhat sluggish but still growing economy.

Finally, since this week’s jobless claims feed into the March rather than February average, they do not affect the latest monthly average of claims. Thus the leading indicator for the unemployment rate in tomorrow’s jobs report remains the same as last week:

Which means that the conclusion is also the same as last week, to wit:   On a monthly basis initial claims are up 7.0% YoY, and initial + continuing claims together are up 10.4%. Since one year ago the unemployment rate was 3.8%, for the first time in many months this suggests upward pressure on the unemployment rate, since 3.8%* 1.07 and *1.10 indicates an unemployment rate of 4.1% or 4.2%, vs. last month’s 4.0%.

Economically weighted ISM indexes for February indicate continued slow growth

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Because manufacturing is now of much less importance to the economy than in the decades before the Millennium, I now use a weighted average of the ISM services index (75%) as well as manufacturing (25%) as the primary forecasting tool. This economically weighted average, especially over a three month period, has been much more accurate since 2000.

In February the expansionary readings in the ISM services report continued, with the total index coming in at 53.5, and the more leading new orders subindex at 52.2. These aren’t strong, but they are expansionary. The three month weighted average of each was 53.4 and 52.6 respectively.

Here is a graph of both the headline number (blue) and the new orders subindex (gray) for the past three years:

It is interesting that the new orders component appears to be in a continued slight downtrend, but there is no indication that it will be below 50.0 and thus indicating contraction soon.

More importantly, since the three month total average in the manufacturing index was 50.1, and for the new orders subindex 51.9, that means the three month economically weighted average for the manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexees is 52.6 for the headline, and 52.4 for new orders.

In short, the economically weighted average of the two ISM indexes continues to forecast growth, if at somewhat a slow pace, in the months ahead.

Important changes in trend in the bond and stock markets, and a note on GDP estimates as well

 

 - by New Deal democrat

There’s no important economic data today, so this is a good time to write about several important developments in the stock and bond markets.

First of all, as many of you may already know, a portion of the US Treasury yield curve, between the 10 year and 3 month Treasuries, re-inverted last week. Here’s what that looks like (dark blue), plus the similar pattern as to the Fed funds rate (light blue):

I put up a post over at Seeking Alpha about how this is not uncommon, and what it means going forward (hint: not so good).

Secondly, especially with the Administration’s latest geopolitical and economic moves, there’s been a little excitement over at the stock market as well. Below is a graph of the S&P 500 Index normed to 100 as of November 1, 2023. I’ve put a line through the level as of November 6, one day after the Election:

As you can see, in the year before the Election, stock prices had increased nearly 40%. That is a huge bull move. While there was a 4% spurt higher on the day after the Election, and several new all-time highs, most recently on February 19, the overall trend in the four months since Election Day has been flat. In fact, yesterday during the day they briefly made a new 3 month low. Should such a low be made at the close of the trading day, that would break the long term uptrend.

UPDATE: The S&P 500 did tumble to a new 3+ month low on the close today, at 5778.15. This breaks the uptrend of the past two years.

There’s also been quite the hubbub in the last few days - particularly by political activists - about the negative GDP prints in the Atlanta Fed’s “nowcast” series, as below:

I suggest taking this with more than a few grains of salt.

The Atlanta Fed’s nowcast of quarterly GDP is an ongoing estimate that changes with each new data point, and can vary widely between the beginning of the Quarter and the end. For sxample, here is the nowcast’s record from Q3 2022, at a time when many observers were predicting a recession:

Note that at the end of August, with only one month to go in the Quarter, it was “nowcasting” a GDP print of nearly 3%. Three weeks later it was barely above 0%. 

What actually happened? It was first reported as up 2.6%, and after many revisions, it is presently reported to have been 2.7%.

Even when the nowcast gets it “right,” as it did last Quarter, there is still a lot of variation in the estimate over the course of the three months:

The bottom line is that it would not be surprising at all if the Atlanta Fed’s nowcast rebounded in the next month just as sharply as it declilned in the last week. 

The most up to the moment forecasting tool I have is the “quick and dirty” model using the YoY% changes in stock prices and (inverted) initial jobless claims:

While the four week average of jobless claims is higher - but by less than the 10% necessary for me even to consider it a “yellow flag,” even after their 5% sell-off, stock prices are still higher by 14% YoY. The upturn in claims, and downturn in stocks, must get considerably worse for me to issue a “recession watch,” let alone a “warning.”

It is important to note that sometimes the main factors affecting the economy are intrinsic to it, like wage gains or commodity prices. But there are also individual (or small group of) actors with singular economic power, and the decisions they make can have immediate or nearly immediate impacts on the situation. That was the case with the OPEC price hikes of the 1970s, and Paul Volcker’s single-handed ratcheting up of interest rates that caused the 1981 “double dip” recession. 

The new Administration is behaving like the proverbial “bull in a china shop,” in a way it did not in 2017, because at that time T—-p did not know how to use the levers of economic power available to the President. This time around he does, and is ignoring Congress, and previous laws and appropriations passed by it, right and left. Many voters in 2024 probably expected that a 2nd T—-p Administration would look like the 1st, which was a traditional GOP Administration when it came to the economy. Obviously that is not going to be the case.

I am going to continue to look at the data (which hopefully will remain reliable for a long enough time), and not go further than what it tells me in terms of forecasting the near term trend going forward in the economy.

ISM manufacturing index and construction spending report paint a picture of a goods producing sector that is no longer expanding

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Although manufacturing is of diminishing importance to the economy, (it was in deep contraction both in 2015-16 and again in 2022 without any recession), the ISM manufacturing index remains an important indicator with a 75+ year history of accurately describing that sector and forecasting it over the short term. 

Any number below 50 indicates contraction. The ISM indicates that the number must be 42.5 or less to signal recession. I use an economically weighted three month average of the manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexes, with a 25% and 75% weighting, respectively, for forecasting purposes.

The last few months may have an additional confounding factor in that after the Election, most businesses likely figured that the new Administration would be laying more tariffs, and may well have been in a rush to get their orders in ahead of time.

This probably figured into the fact that the ISM report for January was the strongest since the second half of 2022. And now in February the Index has fallen back. Specifically, the total index fell -0.6 to 50.3, and the more leading new orders subindex fell from its very strong January reading of 55.1 back into contraction at 48.6, the lowest reading in four months.

Here is a look at both the total index and new orders subindex since the Great Recession:

Including this month, here are the last six months of both the headline (left column) and new orders (right) numbers:

SEP 47.2. 46.1

OCT 46.5. 47.1

NOV  48.4. 50.4

DEC 49.2. 52.1

JAN 50.9  55.1

FEB  50.3  48.6

The current three month average for the total index is 50.3, and for the new orders subindex 51.9.

The surge and then retreat in new orders in particular certainly looks like front-running potential tariffs. The regional Fed manufacturing reports will take on added significance this month to see if they confirm whether that is the case.

For the economy as a whole, the weighted index of manufacturing (25%) and non-manufacturing (75%) indexes is more important. Since the latter has been very positive in the past few months, the combined indexes have suggest continued growth in the months ahead. The non-manufacturing index will be reported on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, construction spending declined as well in the latest report, which was for January. Total spending fell -0.2% and residential spending fell -0.5%. Both of these have been close to flat in the past twelve months:

After declining slightly during the first nine months of 2024, the prices of construction materials have increased in the past few months:

Finally, the boom in manufacturing construction that followed the Inflation Reduction Act has also flattened:

Construction spending isn’t declining in any significant way, but it is no longer increasing either.

Together, this morning’s ISM and construction spending reports paint the picture of the goods producing sector of the economy that is not contracting, but is also no longer expanding.

Weekly Indicators for February 24 - 28 at Seeking Alpha

 

 - by New Deal democrat

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

Last week I wrote that exogenous factors - like political decisions - could have nearly simultaneous effects across all timeframes of indicators. In other words, the long and short leading indicators as well as the coincident indicators, could all react at the same time.

This week there was evidence of exactly that.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the economy, and reward me a little bit for organizing the data for you.

January income and spending show unresolved seasonality in a typical late cycle configuration

 

 - by New Deal democrat

There were two important points in this morning’s personal income and spending report for January. The first is that there appears to be some unresolved seasonality at work. The second is that nevertheless both were weaker than one year ago.

Nominally personal income rose 0.9%, while spending declined -0.2%. Since the deflator increased 0.3%, real income rose 0.6%, and real spending declined -0.4%. Income was a new record high, while spending obviously pulled back:

But a look at the monthly comparisons for the last several years shows that the sharpest increase in real income all last year was also in January, up 0.9%, and the sharpest decrease in real spending was also in last January, down -0.3%:

This strongly hints at unresolved seasonality.

On a YoY basis, the chain type price deflator (blue) was up 2.5%, average for the past six months. Indeed (not shown) since last April prices are up 1.5% for a 2.1% annualized rate over the past nine months. Decomposing the price deflator shows that for goods the index rose a sharp 0.5% for the month, while for services it rose 0.3%. On a YoY basis, the index for services (gold) rose 3.4%, the lowest such increase since March 2021, while for goods (red) it rose 0.6%, the biggest increase since September 2023:

This points to the end of the deflationary period in commodities as being the underlying reason why the PCE inflation index has not declined further since early 2024.  While I won’t bother with the graph this month, despite the decrease in YoY inflation in services consumption, the number is high compared with the 30 years before the pandemic. As I wrote last month, it is noteworthy that goods inflation increasing, and services inflation remaining elevated, is a typical late cycle configuration.

More evidence for residual seasonality was that the personal saving rate jumped from 3.5% to 4.6% on a month over month basis. As the graph below shows, the very same jump happened in January of last year:

Ordinarily I would consider such a jump as a potential precursor to recession, showing an increase in consumer caution, but compared with last January’s rate of 5.5%, the suggestion is that the real trend is a continued slow decline in saving - again, a typical late cycle phenomenon. In other words, as expansions continue, consumers get further out over their skis, and so more vulnerable to an adverse shock.

Some good news was that real income less government transfers, one of the metrics that the NBER looks at to determine economic expansions vs. recessions, increased by 0.3% in January to another new high:

Finally, the PCE price index is used to calculate real manufacturing and trade sales (with a one month lag), another metric used by the NBER to determine if the economy is in recession or not. These jumped 0.7% in December, continuing their post-pandemic uptrend:

Because of the apparent unresolved seasonality in the January numbers, I think we have to turn to the YoY trends for more insight this month. These show continued but decelerating growth in both income and spending, as well as a likely continuing ebbing of the saving rate. Prices of goods are firming and picking up, while services remain elevated. This continues to be a typical late cycle type of configuration.

The end of “steady as she goes” in jobless claims?

 

 - by New Deal democrat

This week’s report on initial jobless claims was of particular interest, because of the issue of whether Federal employees laid off by the new Administration would cause an increase. It appears they did.

Initial jobless claims rose 22,000 for the week to 242,000, and the four week moving average rose 8,500 to 224,000. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims declined -5,000 to 1.862 million:

As you can see from the above graph, initial claims tied for the second highest weekly number in the past six months. A preliminary check of the state by state data indicates that there was a sharp increase in claims in Washington DC, but that would only marginally increase the weekly number. There was also a significant increase YoY in Virginia, but not in Maryland. So as an initial matter it appears that the Federal layoffs were only a part of this increase.

The sharp increase also showed up in the YoY% changes, which are more important for forecasting purposes. There, initial claims were up 13.6% YoY, the four week average up 7.0%, and continuing claims up 3.2%:

Of note, the average of the last two weeks in initial claims is +11.3% YoY.

These numbers are still neutral for forecasting purposes, since the four week moving average is more important than the noisy weekly numbers. But as per the above, that could change as early as next week.

Finally, let’s update our look at what this suggests about the unemployment rate in the months ahead, since initial claims in particular have a very long record of leading the unemployment rate:

On a monthly basis initial claims are up 7.0% YoY, and initial + continuing claims together are up 10.4%. Since one year ago the unemployment rate was 3.8%, for the first time in many months this suggests upward pressure on the unemployment rate, since 3.8%* 1.07 and *1.10 indicates an unemployment rate of 4.1% or 4.2%, vs. last month’s 4.0%.

More unwelcome news in (new) house prices, while sales continue sideways trend

 

 - by New Deal democrat

I almost always start out my post on new home sales by indicating that, while they are the most leading of all housing metrics, they are very noisy and heavily revised.

That was true in spades for this morning’s report for January. As shown in the graph below, sales of new single family homes declined -10.5%, or by 77,000 annualized, to 657,000, from December’s level of 734,000, which was upwardly revised by 36,000, or about 5%, from its originally reported level of 698,000. 

That’s why I usually compare them with single family permits (red, right scale), which lag slightly but are much less noisy or revised:

Just like existing home sales, which I discussed earlier this week, new home sales have been rangebound in the past two years, varying between a low of 611,000 and a high of 741,000.

So despite the sturm and drang of the monthly decline, really this just shows a steady and flat market.

What is perhaps more important is what is happening with prices. To reiterate my theme from the past few months, Ive been looking at new and existing home sales more in tandem, with a rebalancing of the market in mind. For that to happen we need price increases to abate in existing homes, and prices to remain flat or still declining in new homes.

Sales lead prices, which are best viewed in a YoY% comparison. The below graph shows sales (/1.5 for scale) and median prices of new homes (red) in that format, together with the YoY% change in the FHFA repeat sales index reported yesterday (gold):

You can see that prices followed sales higher with about a 12 month lag, and settled in to a slightly declining trend with a similar delay. 

The unwelcome news here is, just as with the repeat sales indexes yesterday, after about two years of generally declining prices, on a YoY basis the median price of a new home was higher by 3.7%. This isn’t rebalancing, but a renewed push in inflation in both new and existing house prices

As the below graph of actual non-seasonally adjusted prices shows, in January we broke that two year trend of slightly declining prices, with the highest price since summer 2022:

This is not good.

Finally, the inventory of new houses made yet another 15+ year high in January, if fact an all time high except for 2006-07. This is actually “good” news - for the moment - because as the below long term historical graph shows, recessions have in the past happened after not just sales decline, but the inventory of new homes for sale - which also consistently lag - also decline (as builders pull back):

So in summary January continued the “steady as she goes” pattern for sales, but broke that trend for prices (subject to noise and revisions next month!). With mortgage rates still close to 7%, I do not expect any upward breakout in sales soon. Which, while it isn’t *bad* news for the economy, is definitely not good news either.

Unwelcome news for homebuyers and the CPI, as repeat home sales prices continue re-acceleration in December

 

 - by New Deal democrat

There was unwelcome news in this morning’s repeat home sales reports from the FHFA and Case-Shiller. On a seasonally adjusted basis, in the three month average through December, according to the Case-Shiller national index (light blue in the graphs below) prices rose 0.5%, and the somewhat more leading FHFA purchase only index (dark blue) rose 0.4%. Both of these continue the trend of re-acceleration we have seen in house prices in the second half of 2024 [Note: FRED hasn’t updated the FHFA data yet]:

Both indexes also accelerated on a YoY basis, the Case Shiller index by 0.1% to a 3.9% gain, and the FHFA index by +0.5% to a 4.7% YoY increase:

Because house prices lead the measure of shelter inflation in the CPI, specifically Owners Equivalent Rent by 12-18 months, here is the updated calculation of its trend. Despite the increases in the house price indexes in the past several months, there is still every reason to believe that OER should continue to trend gradually towards roughly a 3.5% YoY increase in the months ahead:

The most leading rental index, the Fed’s experimental all new rental index, has not been updated since November, but the similar Apartment List National Rent Report as of the end of January continued to indicate that YoY rent increases should decline further. So the bulk of the evidence continues to point further deceleration in that huge component of consumer price inflation:

Because prices generally follow sales, as a refresher here is the graph of existing home sales. As I wrote earlier this week, for the past 2 years these have remained in a relatively tight range (following mortgage rates):

The takeaway from the increased price pressure in the existing home market as measured by the FHFA and Case Shiller Indexes is that the trend of slowly abating shelter inflation in the CPI may slow even further, although it seems likely to slow down.

Q3 2024 QCEW suggests employment was considerably weaker than we thought last year

 

 - by New Deal democrat

This will be income, spending, and housing week, but that won’t start until tomorrow. While there’s no news today, there was an important update to employment data last week; namely, the QCEW for Q3 of last year.

As a refresher, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages is just that, a *census* rather than a survey. It includes something like 95% of all businesses, and is taken from their tax reporting. This means it is not an estimate or guess, but very close to a full itemized count. The drawback being, of course, that it doesn’t get reported until almost 6 months later.

Since at least June of 2023, the QCEW has been telling us that the monthly jobs report has been over counting employment. The recent benchmark revisions downwardly revised 2023 and 2024 employment by about -600,000.

And the Q3 2024 QCEW tells us it will probably have to be revised down further.

Since the QCEW is not seasonally adjusted, the only way to measure is YoY. Also, unfortunately FRED does not pick up the data for easy putting in graphic form. But here is the crucial chart:

To cut to the chase, in the first five months of last year, employment grew either 1.3% or 1.4% YoY. That suddenly downshifted in June, and remained anemic through September, with YoY growth of 0.8% to 1.0%.

Now leet’s compare that with a graph of the YoY% growth in nonfarm payrolls:

With the recent benchmark revisions, the YoY growth rate in jobs for the first five months of last year is now estimated at 1.4%-1.6%, only slightly higher than the QCEW. But in the JUne through September period, it is 1.2% or 1.3%, significantly higher than the QCEW.

According to the crrrent nonfarm payrolls numbers, the economy added almost 2 million jobs during the 12 months from September 2023 through September 2024. If we bring that down to a 0.9% gain (the average of the June through September YoY gains as measured by the QCEW, that brings us down to a 1.4 million job gain, a difference of -600,000, primarily centered on the last four months of that period.

Now here is a graph of the monthly gains in jobs during that same 12 month period:

The current estimate of job gains in the June through September 2024 period is 486,000, including three very anemic months. If we apply the YoY downshifting of the QCEW during those months, all of those gains disappear.

At the same time, it’s important to note that all of the QCEW numbers for 2024 are preliminary at this point. In 2023 there was a similar cratering of the QCEW, strongly suggesting actual job losses - that subsequently disappeared when the QCEW for that year was finalized.

Finally, let me emphasize that the above does not mean there was a recession last year. Almost all of the other important indicators showed continued growth through the period. And the QCEW also reports wage growth, and there it showed continued aggregate wage growth of 4.4% and 4.5% in Q2 and Q3 of last year, very much in line with aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls from the monthly reports:

Still, it’s another cautionary signal that the economy last year (which also means the economy going into the November elections) probably was not as strong as was thought at the time.

Weekly Indicators for February 17 - 21 at Seeking Alpha

 

 - by New Deal democrat

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

For now the status quo continues, of problematic interest rates, but excellent short term and coincident data. Political events affecting the economy may start to show up in the next few weeks, however. The first tiny inkling may have been the 9.5% YoY increase in weekly initial claims.

As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the economic data, and reward me a tiny bit for collecting and organizing it all for you.

Existing home sales: trends of increasing prices, invcreasing inventory, and flat sales all continue

 

 - by New Deal democrat

Existing home sales have been flat in the general range of 3.85 -4.10 million annualized for two years, and that continued in January, as on a monthly basis sales decreased -4.9% to 40.8 million from an upwardly revised December number of 4.29 million annualized:

The slightly better numbers in the past few months are of a piece with the slight uptrend in housing permits and starts we saw earlier this week, likely driven by recent lower mortgage rates (which have now ended).

Earlier in 2024 we saw a deceleration in the YoY% change in prices, but that reversed in autumn, as after a 4.0% YoY increase in October, the pace re-accelerated and in December prices were up 6.0%. In January that moderated to up 4.8% YoY, but considering that January is typically the low for annual prices, as shown in the below graph which shows the non-seasonally adjusted data, there is no sign of any real moderation in that trend:

Finally, there has been a decade-long trend of lower inventory than in the past. That trend accelerated during the COVID shutdowns. After briefly turning negative YoY in early 2023, making a low of -3.0% YoY that May, inventory has gradually turned higher. Typically December and January are the annual lows in inventory. In January inventory increased to 1.18 million from December’s low of 1.15 million.  This is the highest inventory for January since 2020 (note: graph below is not updated through January)::

This contrasts with the low of 860,000 in January 2022, vs. the best January level in the past 10 years of 1.86 million in 2015.

As was the case last month, in summary on a non-seasonally adjusted basis sales, prices, and inventory were all up from one year ago, meaning that the market is continuing to slowly recover from the pandemic collapse. The continuing issue is whether enough supply will come back onto the market to allow competition to attenuate YoY price growth that has made existing homes relative to new homes relatively speaking the least affordable ever.