Macro Briefing: 5 September 2024

US job openings in July fell to the lowest level since January 2021, the Labor Department reports. The slide highlights concerns that the labor market’s recent slowdown will continue. The report also strengthens the view that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at next week’s policy meeting (Sep. 18). “The labor market is no longer cooling down to its pre-pandemic temperature, it’s dropped past it,” says Nick Bunker, head of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Nobody, and certainly not policymakers at the Federal Reserve, should want the labor market to get any cooler at this point.”

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Macro Briefing: 4 September 2024

US manufacturing activity continued to contract in August, according to survey data released for the ISM Manufacturing Index. The benchmark ticked higher last month but reflected contraction for the fifth straight month and for the 21st time in the last 22 months. The report also showed that manufacturers continue to pay higher prices for inputs. “Input price pressures moved up modestly to the highest in three months, but they are not so high in our judgment to threaten continued slow disinflation,” says Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital. “No bar to a September rate cut here but nothing to push the Fed to a half-point cut either.”

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Macro Briefing: 3 September 2024

US consumer sentiment ticked up in August, marking the first rise after four straight monthly declines, according to the University of Michigan’s survey. “Consumers’ short- and long-run economic outlook improved, with both figures reaching their most favorable levels since April 2024 and a particularly sizable 10% improvement for long-run expectations that was seen across age and income groups,” writes Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu.
The improvement follows a stronger rise in US personal consumption expenditures in July, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. Consumer spending increased 0.5%, picking up from June’s 0.3% advance.

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The Workers Have Left The Building

The Capital Spectator is clocking out early for the Labor Day holiday. The usual schedule of toiling in the editorial salt mines resumes with the morning whistle on Tuesday, Sep. 3. Cheers!