Nonfarm payroll employment clocks in substantially above consensus (Bloomberg: mean 230,000, range 140,000 to 275,000), solidifying trend growth. Previous months’ estimates revised upward. Wages continue to rise, but labor costs in productivity adjusted terms are stable. Figure 1: Log nonfarm payroll employment as estimated by the BLS in the establishment survey (blue), and as estimated by…
It appears the growth-is-back-just-look-at-the-jobs-number meme is not flowing through to the oil complex. WTI just broke below $66.00 (having earlier broken below and bounced back above) and is now down almost 1% on the week having retraced most of Monday’s kneejerk dead-cat-bounce. This will be the lowest weekly close since July 2009 and down 9 of…
The Weekly Leading Index (WLI) of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) is at 132.5, up from the previous week’s 131.7. The WLI annualized growth indicator (WLIg) is at -2.4, down slightly from -2.3 the previous week. ECRI has been at the center of a prolonged controversy since publicizing its recession call on September 30, 2011. The company had…
During the past several months, many high yielding sectors of the closed-end fund marketplace have underperformed investors’ expectations. This is especially prescient in light of the broad equity market’s push to new all-time highs following the October volatility. Wide spread selling pressure has been cropping up in nearly all credit heavy and commodity related funds,…
In today’s Outside the Box the redoubtable James Montier of GMO lifts his lance to prick the underbelly of the Mighty SVM. (That’s Shareholder Value Maximization, for you newbies.) “The world’s dumbest idea” (among many candidates in the world of finance), says James, citing none other than “Neutron Jack” Welch in support. After noting that…
Source: Wikimedia Dear Diary, A faint breeze blew through the US stock exchanges yesterday. A few leaves fluttered. But Diary readers want to know: When is the next hurricane coming? Alas, we get the newspaper no earlier than anyone else. It always has yesterday’s news… not tomorrow’s. That leaves us wondering and guessing and trying to figure out…
This isn’t all that much of a surprise if you’ve been following the temp help index and some of the other indicators… they have been forecasting accelerating employment since for some time.. From early Nov From August “Davidson” submits: The media says “We are off to the races!” with this morning’s employment reports. As usual the focus is on…
The national debt of the United States officially surpassed $18 trillion this past week. The news has been making the rounds of every media outlet, with many economists reminding us of the very shaky footing of the U.S. economy. However, there are other analysts who play down this outrageously irresponsible amount of debt. In his…
Well, although there are mixed opinions about our friends in Gainesville, one thing they’ve gotten absolutely right is US dollar strength. Prechter’s contention for a bull market in the dollar has been well-documented. It’s remarkable to me that a country over $18 trillion in debt can be seen as the Hercules of the fiscal world,…
The decline in energy prices has increasingly become important for consumers, investors, and policy makers. Here are nine essays I have written in recent weeks that analyze what is going on; integrating political and economic analysis, geopolitics and game theory. These series of essays also illustrate how my thinking has evolved through the analysis and subsequent…
