High-Frequency Post-Virus Recovery

Bank credit in loans and leases at new highs, and the banking stress index keeps falling. New claims miss, existing claims beat. It's a beautiful day in the high-frequency neighborhood.

If this productivity-led boom were softening, we'd see it in the high-frequency data first, but we don't. New and existing claims, already at low levels, beat expectations yet again, leaving the implied unemployment rate at 1.3%. The only worrisome spot is the Truflation real-time measure of March inflation, not showing over 10% at an annual rate. It's volatile and somewhat erratic, and was showing outright deflation in March just 10 tens ago. But something to keep an eye on...

Very slight misses in claims -- and Truflation's March CPI so far shows outright deflation, after a somewhat hot February thanks to food.

It's this simple. If you don't have a contraction in jobs, you don't have a recession. If you don't have a rise in claims, you won't have a contraction in jobs. Claims beat this morning, both new and continuing. They beat at amazingly low levels. No risk of recession. Move along.