CES based employment indicators (NFP, private NFP, hourly wages, hours) essentially at consensus. Here’s the roundup of key NBER indicators (of which employment and personal income ex-transfers are central).
EPU, News Sentiment, Term Spreads, VIX
Data available as of today:
Guest Contribution: “Trump’s far out negotiating positions”
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version, written in advance of the March 4 tariffs, was published by Project Syndicate and the Korea Herald.
Nowcasts accounting for Gold Imports
Ballpark adjustment to GDPNow:
EPU through 3/5
Highest 7 day moving average since Covid…(not sure if that date coincides with “bleach”):
Is a Recession Still Coming?
Despite the lack of coincident indicators suggesting a recession’s onset (we’ll see more on Friday), there are plenty of articles now suggesting an imminent recession: “Wall Street Banks Say Markets Are Flashing Rising Recession Risk”, “The Recession Trade Is Back on Wall Street”, “Whisper it and it’s back: Recession risk creeps onto markets’ radar”, “2025 Recession Risk Is Increasing According To Multiple Indicators”. Kalshi’s recession probability for 2025 is now at 42%, after languishing at around 22% for a month. Assuming no recession as of February, what does a conventional term spread (10yr-3mo) model for 12 months ahead indicate?
ADP Private NFP Growth Underwhelms
+77K vs. +141K (Bloomberg consensus). Using the 2021M07-2025M01 relationship between ADP and BLS measures (in log first differences), I nowcast +125 vs Bloomberg +108K (although the 95% prediction interval encompasses a drop to 135310K from January’s 135479K).
Macro Lecture Notes on Mass Deportation/Immigration Restriction
From Econ442, yesterday’s lecture:
The Outlook for Grocery Prices and Eggs (pre-tariff)
So much for grocery prices dropping on day one. Some forecasts from ERS, TradingEconomics:
(Would’a Been) Biggest Tax Increase Ever!
Update to this post.