Industrial and manufacturing production downside surprises.
Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll incl benchmark revision employment from CES (bold blue), implied NFP from preliminary benchmark through December (thin blue), civilian employment as reported (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding current transfers in Ch.2017$ (bold light green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2017$ (black), consumption in Ch.2017$ (light blue), and monthly GDP in Ch.2017$ (pink), GDP (blue bars), all log normalized to 2021M11=0. 2025Q1 GDP is advance release. Source: BLS via FRED, Federal Reserve, BEA, S&P Global Market Insights (nee Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Markit) (5/1/2025 release), and author’s calculations.
Manufacturing index down -0.4% m/m, compared to -0.2% consensus.
Figure 2: Manufacturing production (blue), value added in 2017$ (red), production and nonsupervisory worker employment (tan), hours (light green) all in logs, 2024M04=0; and capacity utilization (NAICS), % (black, right scale). Aggregate hours of production workers calculated by multiplying average weekly hours by employees. Source: Federal Reserve, BEA, BLS, and author’s calculations.
African nations like Ethiopia want to make mining and energy deals with nations like China but thanks to our felon in chief not with us:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ethiopia-secures-more-than-1-6bn-in-mining-and-energy-investment-deals/ar-AA1ERgGf?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=DCTS&cvid=2c4aca3433f0462098ab2d49d66301ec&ei=10
Lots of deals here including:
The Ethiopian Finance Ministry also signed deals with Hanergy New Energy Technology Company, which plans to invest $360m in constructing a solar cell manufacturing facility.
Oh wait – the MAGA morons like Bruce Hall want to destroy solar as an energy choice.
James, was it you who recently pointed out which state generates the most electricity from renewable energy sources?:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_renewable_electricity_production
So of course the Texas legislature is now considering a bill to require that renewable energy utilities install batteries, in order to supply power in all conditions. Imagine that – a new, expensive regulatory burden for an electric utility. In Texas. Somebody tell faux news; they’ll be outraged, I’m sure.