- by New Deal democrat
Still nerdy after all these years
- by New Deal democrat
- by New Deal democrat
- by New Deal democrat
Bottom line: I continue to believe that CPI for shelter will continue to decelerate on a YoY basis, but more slowly than before. Any significant acceleration in CPI will be driven by gas prices and/or other services.
- by New Deal democrat
In this expansion, YoY employment growth peaked in March 2021 (one year after the sudden lockdowns due to the pandemic). It’s pretty clear that is a false positive. But if we look further out, after virtually all laid off employees were recalled to work, YoY payrolls growth peaked in February 2022:
YoY% growth in nominal wages
This indicator (blue in the graphs below) was a lot noisier, and might be thought of more as a long leading indicator, because it often has peaked about 3/4’s of the way through an expansion, but it was useful enough to group with the series. Here’s the historical look:
Because in the past several years I have discovered that real aggregate nonsupervisory payrolls have been an event better indicator, I’ve included their nominal YoY% growth (red) as well.
Here’s what the current expansion looks like:
Again, both of these appear to have peaked in early 2022.
YoY% growth in real retail sales vs. real personal consumption expenditures
Ten years ago I identified a consistent pattern whereby retail sales grew faster than the broader category of personal consumption expenditures early in an expansion, but slower later in an expansion. Retail sales constitute about 50% of PCE's and are more volatile, but as the graph below comparing the YoY% growth in the two, they vary in a very specific and non-random way:
- by New Deal democrat
On Friday the CDC updated its COVID death statistics through March 31, which means that we now have 4 full years of data. It also updated its hospitalization data through April 20, and to cut to the chase, last week saw a record low hospitalizations for COVID - 5,615 - since its onset. So this is a good time to look at the state of the now-endemic pandemic.
- by New Deal democrat
My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha.
Not much churn in the short leading or coincident timeframes this week. But one of the long leading indicators joined the “less bad” parade. This is what I would expect to see coming out of a recession, before growth in the shorter term improves. Just one week, but still . . .
As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the economy, and bring me a little pocket change for the week as well.