The September data profile is nearly complete and the numbers provided so far reflect an economy that continues to grow. Of the 12 indicators published to date for The Capital Spectator Economic Trend Index (CS-ETI), 9 are trending positive. That’s a strong signal for assuming that recession risk was still low last month.
Housing Starts & New Permits Rise Sharply In September
The housing market reached what might be thought of as a new post-recession milestone last month, and for all the right reasons, the Census Bureau reports. The takeaway here: The idea that the economy is caught in a fatal swoon just took another blow with today’s numbers. What’s more, there’s reason to wonder if growth is set to pick up a bit for the economy overall, an outlook that’s supported by my latest nowcasts of Q3:2012 GDP (I’ll have an update later today). That’s also the message in the September profile for economic and financial data, as summarized by The Capital Spectator Economic Trend Index (I’ll update CS-ETI today as well). Today’s housing numbers certainly don’t offer any reason to think otherwise.
Industrial Production Rebounds In September
Industrial production rebounded in September after a steep decline in August. As the Federal Reserve noted when the August numbers were released, the sharp drop that month was probably due to the temporary effects of Hurricane Isaac. Today’s update appears to offer confirmation that the August retreat was a one-time problem rather than the start of a cyclical downturn. Indeed, industrial production continues to rise at a modest pace, advancing 2.8% on a year-over-year basis through last month. Today’s news brings one more positive contribution to the September economic profile, and one more reason for thinking that recession risk remains low.
September Retail Sales: Another Solid Increase
Retail sales posted another respectable advance in September, the Census Bureau reports. The 1.1% rise last month matches the previous gain, which was revised up. It’s been a number of years, in fact, since we’ve seen back-to-back 1%-plus gains in retail sales on a monthly basis. Today’s retail sales update is just one data point, of course, but it echoes the narrative that I’ve been discussing on these pages for some time: the economy continues to chug along, expanding modestly. That implies that recession risk remains low. (For a broad review of the data behind this view, see last week’s updates of The Capital Spectator Economic Trend Index and the Q3 GDP nowcast.)
Book Bits | 10.13.12
● Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
By Chrystia Freeland
Article by author via The Atlantic
F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.
What Does Consumer Confidence Imply For The Equity Risk Premium?
Estimating the equity risk premium—the return on stocks over a “safe” asset such as the 10-year Treasury or 3-month T-bill—is at the heart of investment research and portfolio analysis. “It is the ‘number’ that drives everything we do,” writes Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU. The premium “depends strictly on expectations for the future because the investor’s returns depend only on the investment’s cash flows,” advise the authors of the CFA Institute’s Equity Asset Valuation
Can We Believe Last Week’s Big Drop In Jobless Claims?
Maybe not, some analysts warn. As reported earlier today, new filings for unemployment benefits declined last week to the lowest level since January 2008. On its face, the data suggests a big improvement in the dynamics of the labor market. But in the hours after the numbers were released, questions about the validity of the report have been flying far and wide.
Jobless Claims Fell To New Post-Recession Low Last Week
Today’s update on weekly jobless claims delivers the best news for the labor market in recent memory. It certainly one of the strongest reports for this series since the Great Recession ended in June 2009. However you describe today’s news for this leading indicator, it’s unequivocally encouraging, and powerfully so. Yes, it may be misleading, as any one data point for this volatile series can be, and so we should be wary until we see more numbers in the weeks ahead. But at the very least today’s update strengthens the case for expecting continued healing in the labor market and slow economic growth, perhaps at a moderately faster pace. Analysts in the recession-is-here-now camp, in other words, have some explaining to do.
Jack Welch, Employment Data, And The Big Picture
Jack Welch insists that the September jobs report, released last week, is “strange” and “implausible.” Specifically, the economy’s sluggish growth doesn’t support the reported drop in unemployment last month to 7.8% from 8.1% in August. It just “doesn’t make sense,” the former head of General Electric writes in The Wall Street Journal. The problem, he explains, is that the methodology behind the household employment survey, which is the source of the unemployment number, is less than perfect. Agreed. But why stop there? If we’re fired up about finding reasons to question economic indicators–one at a time, in a vacuum–the opportunity is unlimited for casting aspersions across the statistical landscape. This is a dead end, however, if we’re looking for deeper insight about the economy and the business cycle. Pointing out flaws for a given data series has merit, but not much. The bigger issue is deciding how to interpret the numbers in search of reasonably reliable perspective. Fortunately, the outlook isn’t as bleak as Welch’s essay implies.
Who Moved My Peak Oil?
The buzz about peak oil has peaked, and for a good reason: the peak remains MIA. That doesn’t mean that the global supply of crude oil is a non-issue. Far from it. But for the moment, at least, statistical evidence in favor of arguing that the world’s output of crude has hit a ceiling, or is in imminent danger of doing so, looks thin.