With personal income, consumption, and manufacturing and trade industry sales released, no downturn yet. If consensus holds, the momentum continues into August. Here are some key indicators followed by the NBER BCDC, along with monthly GDP and GDPNow.
Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment, NFP (dark blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), consumption in Ch.2012$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), 2023Q2 is GDPNow of 8/31, all log normalized to 2021M11=0. Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA 2023Q2 second release via FRED, Atlanta Fed, S&P Global/IHS Markit (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (8/1/2023 release), and author’s calculations.
Concerns that the CES series (nonfarm payroll employment) followed by NBER BCDC is seriously overstating employment were allayed by the preliminary benchmark revision.
High frequency indicators, including the Lewis-Mertens-Stock (NY Fed) Weekly Economic Indicators show y/y growth of 1.94% for week ending 8/26.
Caveat: All these indicators will be revised, particularly the official GDP series. That means the turning points as identified by analysts may very well evolve over time (and it’s also why the NBER BCDC waits a long time before making a turning point determination.)
More tomorrow with the employment release, and monthly GDP.
PCE inflation revisions after NIPA benchmark annual update will be interesting. Any hints on what can we expect? I’m curious if the stickiness of non-housing services inflation will occur to be somewhat weaker than what we see now.
I’m a little confused by this. In the last week or so we have seen many individual retailers report bad earnings. How do we jive this with the light blue line?? Some people would argue Dollar General is a pretty good barometer. Wasn’t looking too good there. Macy’s, Petco, Lowes, Target, Kohl’s, Dicks Sporting Goods. That looks across the board to me. And even our good man Mr. Furman has had some tweets about consumers getting pinched now. That has to “show up” in that light blue line sometime, yes??
Hey Moses,
Those chain stores mostly sell goods. Goods sales aren’t rising much lately. Services demand, on the other hand, is growing nicely:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=18hlQ
Goods prices are also tame, not good for retailers:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=18hnJ
I think Menzie had made this point to me before (which he no doubt viewed as mundanely obvious). I guess as your typical old creepy uncle, I can’t get it into my thick walled head how much young people are paying now for services and “experiences”. I guess that’s what happens when you grow-up motor home park shit poor, you think of the local park and the library as “experiences”, not going broke so you can have a waitress with a tie, or look at some palm trees.
*trailer park shit poor.
I hope this is the summer heat still engulfing my brain that I can’t get simple terminology right now. I may turn into Rosser soon, and think that differences in tenths of one percent in ethnic make-up between the same regional states equals a “skew” and that blonde urban Stepford wives are 98% Comanche. God, oh Dear God, please kill me now if this isn’t the effects of summer heat. I already have too many nose hairs to pluck out, make it stop, before I think marriage makes me a “nation expert”.
Trump on the UAW and EVs:
Trump Says Autoworkers “Going to Hell,” Tells Them Not to Pay Union Dues
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/trump-says-autoworkers-going-to-hell-tells-them-not-to-pay-union-dues/ar-AA1g3U3Y
In a video posted to Truth Social, Trump ranted against electric vehicles and told auto workers not to pay their union dues. Last month, Trump attempted to hoodwink an endorsement out of the United Auto Workers union by also deceptively attacking electric vehicles, claiming they will ruin the auto industry. Trump also claimed the UAW union and auto industry executives are cutting deals for themselves to hurt workers. Trump: “I’m telling you. You shouldn’t pay those dues. You should not pay your dues. Because they’re selling you to to hell. You’re going to be going to hell.” Trump claimed Joe Biden’s green policies would hurt auto worker jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Joe Biden’s economy has more automotive jobs now than Trump’s ever did. Trump: “All of those [electric] cars are going to be made in China. …They’re going to make all those cars. We’re not going to make any of them.”
Yea Trump is a total moron.