Employment

The Economic Week Ahead

Sep 29, 2024 3 min read paid

The week ahead is jampacked with employment indicators. The Fed started a new monetary easing cycle on September 18, cutting the federal funds rate by 50bps. The question now is how hard will it press on the gas pedal? Given last week's cooler-than-expected inflation print, the Fed will most likely retain its bias for easier monetary policy unless the labor market data are surprisingly strong. The consensus currently

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Employers Are Not Hiring Or Firing. Productivity May Be the Reason.

Sep 6, 2024 3 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

The Great Normalization

Sep 5, 2024 3 min read paid

Oops: Bloomberg reported on Tuesday after the stock market closed, that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had sent Nvidia a subpoena related to a potential antitrust investigation. We speculated that a leak of that information might have caused Tuesday's selloff. On Wednesday after the close, Nvidia denied that it had received a DOJ subpoena. Go figure! Today's economic data were consistent with our short-term thesis (i.

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Don't Sweat Tomorrow's Payroll Revisions

Aug 20, 2024 3 min read paid

Tomorrow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QECW) for the 12 months ended March 2024. These data are used to revise previous payroll employment reports. They come with a lag, but are generally accepted to be more accurate than the initial monthly releases, which were already revised twice. The initial 12-month revisions can be large, recently having swung by more than

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Beryling Toward Rate Cuts

Aug 2, 2024 2 min read

Some macroeconomic storm clouds are brewing. Markets are fleeing for shelter in Treasuries, leaving behind almost everything else, including their prized LargeCap tech stocks and recently acquired SMidCaps. Here's the market action as of midday: * The Nasdaq officially entered a correction, down more than 10% from its record high reached roughly a month ago. * The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) popped to 29, which hasn’t been seen since

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Rotating Market Betting On Pivoting Powell

Jul 30, 2024 3 min read paid

This is what Fed Chair Jerome Powell is likely to say at his presser tomorrow: "The economy has been stronger than we expected and the labor market remains solid. Inflation is getting closer to our 2.0% target, but it isn't there yet. We didn't cut the federal funds rate at this meeting of the FOMC, but we might do so at the September 17-18

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

The Economic Week Ahead: July 29-Aug 2

Jul 28, 2024 2 min read paid

The week ahead is packed with economic indicators, but all eyes will be on the Fed's interest rate decision on Wednesday and payroll employment on Friday. We don't expect the Fed will alter the stance of monetary policy at the July meeting, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell could signal that a September cut to the federal funds rate (FFR) is likely. That's because as

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

An Earnings-Driven Bull Market

Jul 22, 2024 3 min read paid

Yesterday, we suggested that the stock market selloff since the July 16 record high in the S&P 500 might not last very long. So we were pleased by today's broad rally in the S&P 500 (1.1%), Nasdaq (1.6%), Russell 2000 (1.7%), and the MAGS (2.4%). We expect that a solid print in Q2's real GDP on Thursday and

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

The Economic Week Ahead: July 1-5

Jun 30, 2024 2 min read paid

We know there will be fireworks on July 4th. The question is whether we should expect any blasts or just fizzling sounds during the week ahead related to the economy and the labor market. The holiday-shortened week will be jampacked with employment indicators. We aren't expecting any big surprises: (1) Payroll employment. We expect that June's employment report (Fri) will show payrolls rose by 150,000

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Confidence Survey Shows Jobs Are Still Relatively Plentiful

Jun 25, 2024 2 min read paid

The first available monthly indicator of the labor market is the "jobs plentiful" series in the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) survey. Today, June's reading showed that 38.1% of respondents said so (chart). That's a slight uptick from May, and a relatively high reading. The "jobs hard to get response" ticked down to 14.1%, which is a very low reading. The

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

The Recession Claim

May 9, 2024 2 min read

One of our competitors claims that we are in a recession. Another claims that we will soon be in a recession. The most widely anticipated recession of all times is turning into the longest widely anticipated recession of all times. One day, the diehard hard-landers will be right. Was today the day? We're sure that their heartbeats quickened on today's jobless claims report. Consider the following:

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Powell Says No Stag, No Flation.

May 1, 2024 2 min read paid

Fed Chair Jerome Powell wasn't dovish at his presser today. But he wasn't hawkish either. He said, "I think it's unlikely that the next policy rate move will be a hike." The 2-year Treasury yield fell back below 5.00% to 4.98%, consistent with one 25bps cut in the federal funds rate over the next twelve months. The S&P

Ed Yardeni

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