In the Challenger, Gray and Christmas report for January is an interesting table, reporting the job losses attributed to each factor.
Is Accelerating Inflation Just around the Corner?
Households say yes (preliminary), while Wall Street economists says no:
0.68%: Truflation Y/Y CPI Inflation Rate as of 8 February 2026
The Cleveland Fed nowcast for February 2026 as of today is 2.34%.
What Could Go Wrong? The AI Asset Price and Investment Boom
Last semester, teaching the Financial System, I laid out three things that worried me: Crypto & stablecoins, private credit, and the AI boom. How’re things looking for the latter?
The Layoff Announcement-Labor Force Ratio and Recessions, 1989-2025
Using Challenger, Gray, Christmas data at quarterly frequency, normalized by civilian labor force.
Nowcasting January Private NFP
BLS will release (w/delay) on Wednesday. Until then, we have ADP (which underwent benchmarking). Using ADP data (2022M01-2025M12) to extrapolate the implied preliminary benchmark, we have the following picture:
USDA Forecasts Near Constant Farm Cash Income…As Long as We Dole Out $44.3 Billion
From USDA on Thursday:
Trade Balance ex-Gold
Layoff Announcements: Do they Lead Actual Layoffs?
Challenger, Gray and Christmas had a startling headline: “January Job Cuts Surge; Lowest January Hiring on Record”.
Source: Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
Guest Contribution: “Caligula Reincarnated”
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 was published in Project Syndicate.