Sorry, Jay. The economy just continues to "complicate the FOMC's effort" to cause a recession. Restaurants booming. Huge beat in claims. Where's the soft landing? Where's the landing at all?
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, December 29, 2022
A nice end to a nice year in high-frequency data. Other than a seasonal and weather-driven drop in rail-freight traffic, there continues to be no warning of recession.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Claims rise slightly, but beat expectations. So the implied unemployment rate rises by 1 bp. The Fed's tightening regime is "working"! In other news, Q3 real GDP was revised upward again t0 3.2% at an annual rate (the more the Fed tightens, the faster the economy grows). That puts us 4.4% above pre-pandemic output, with no more people working to produce it. Inflationary recession? No. It's our productivity-led boom.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, December 15, 2022
Nice beats on already-low estimates for new and continuing claims move the implied-unemployment rate down slightly. Happy landings, Jay.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, December 8, 2022
New claims exactly at expectation, leaving the implied unemployment rate unchanged. No hard landing. No soft landing. No landing at all.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, December 1, 2022
Some Thanksgiving-week noise in the data, but the overarching good news is that the claims-implied unemployment rate ticked down after last week's little pop. The labor market in real-time is looking Fed-proof.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
A miss in claims, and a sharp uptick in implied unemployment to the highest level since March. Noise? Holiday-week distortion? Or first step to recession? Only her central banker knows for sure.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, November 17, 2022
This morning James Bullard called for a 7% policy rate -- because he doesn't like the fact that the data, including today's beats in new jobless claims, isn't showing signs of recession. He might want to note, instead, that year-on-year inflation has been falling steadily since June.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, November 10, 2022
The only soft spot in the high-frequency data is year-ahead S&P 500 forward earnings. It's not trivial to see it sagging a bit -- but nothing else we track is sagging at all.
High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery
Thursday, November 3, 2022
Powell to high-frequency data: "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll push on a string." After 4-1/2 months of extreme rate hikes, no sign of weakness.