Surveys

Bond Vigilantes Running Into Some Resistance

Aug 14, 2023 2 min read paid

The 10-year US Treasury bond yield continues to run into resistance around 4.25%, which was last year's high (chart). The bond bears led by the Bond Vigilantes would like to see the yield rise well above that level to demonstrate that they are unhappy with the government's profligate fiscal policies. The bond bulls--including us, for now--see the current level as an attractive one if inflation

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: July 3-7

Jul 2, 2023 2 min read paid

The first week of every month tends to be jampacked with employment and PMI releases. All eyes will be on June's employment report at the end of the week. The recent upturn in initial unemployment claims suggests that the labor market may be cooling off a bit. Thursday's jobless claims should confirm that. However, that same day, May's JOLTS report should show that job

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: May 22-26

May 20, 2023 2 min read paid

On Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that monetary policy is "restrictive." So Fed policy will be data-dependent, particularly so on inflation indicators. For those of us in the "pause" camp, he seemed to suggest that's possible. He acknowledged that the banking crisis is bound to tighten credit conditions reducing the need for the Fed to get more restrictive. That's been our

Ed Yardeni

New York's Regional Business Survey Shows Lots of Weakness

May 15, 2023 1 min read paid

Business activity fell sharply in New York State, according to firms responding to the May 2023 Empire State Manufacturing Survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was released this morning. The headline general business conditions index dropped 43.0 points to -31.8. New orders and shipments plunged after rising significantly last month. Delivery times shortened somewhat, and inventories contracted. Both employment and hours worked edged

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: May 15-19

May 13, 2023 2 min read paid

The week ahead is jampacked with coincident and leading economic indicators. The most up-to-the-minute ones will be May 12 mortgage applications (Wed) and May 13 jobless claims (Thu). The former seems to be bottoming suggesting that April housing starts (Wed) and existing home sales (Thu) might surprise to the upside, or at least not on the downside (chart) On a four-week moving average basis, jobless claims have moved higher recently

Ed Yardeni

Foul Moods

Apr 25, 2023 2 min read paid

The S&P 500 fell 1.6% today mostly because First Republic's earnings report reminded investors that the banking crisis may not be over yet. That put them in a foul mood all day. Consumers are also in a foul mood: The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell to 101.3 in April, the lowest reading since July 2022, from 104.0 in March. Consumers&

Ed Yardeni

An Upbeat Earnings Indicator

Apr 24, 2023 1 min read paid

Why has the stock market been holding up so well so far this year despite lots of pessimism about an impending recession? One possible explanation is that industry analysts are turning more optimistic on the earnings prospects of the companies they follow. We have been tracking the percent of S&P 500 companies with positive three-month percent changes in analysts' consensus forward earnings (chart). (FYI: “Forward” earnings is

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: April 24-28

Apr 23, 2023 1 min read paid

This week is jampacked with economic indicators and earnings reports. The BIGGEST numbers will come out on Friday for the PCED and ECI inflation rates. Both should show that inflation remains high but is continuing to moderate. The ECI wage inflation rate was 5.1% during Q4. We know that AHE fell to 4.2% y/y during March (chart). Q1's preliminary real GDP (Thu) is tracking at

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: April 17-21

Apr 16, 2023 2 min read paid

This is a light week for economic indicators, but there will be plenty of earnings calls to keep investors busy. We will be focusing on the two regional business surveys for April released by the FRBNY (Mon) and the Philly Fed (Thu). Together, they tend to foretell the outcome of the three other regional business surveys released later this month as well as the national M-PMI (out early next month)

Ed Yardeni

Labor Market Tight. Goods Market Not So.

Feb 28, 2023 1 min read paid

The Fed would like to see fewer job openings to help moderate wage inflation. The time series is reported in the JOLTS report. January's update comes out March 8. It could jolt the Fed into remaining hawkish. That's because it is highly correlated with the The Conference Board's "jobs plentiful" series that came out today and that's been up two

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead, Jan. 30 - Feb. 3

Jan 29, 2023 1 min read paid

The FOMC meets on Tuesday and Wednesday. Odds are the committee will vote for a 25bps federal funds rate hike to 4.50%-4.75%. Odds are that Fed Chair Jerome Powell at his Wednesday afternoon presser will continue to sound hawkish even though economic growth is slowing and inflation is moderating. This week will also be jampacked with employment indicators. January's Consumer Confidence (Tue) is likely to

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead, January 17-20

Jan 16, 2023 2 min read paid

We expect that more of the Fed's talking heads will be talking this week about monetary policy perhaps with a bit less agreement of what needs to be done next. They only have three days to do so before the FOMC blackout period begins. The Q4-2022 earnings reporting season continues this week. More important than the quarter's results will be managements' guidance for this year.

Ed Yardeni

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