US Economy

Fed's NY Business Survey Takes A Dive In August

Aug 15, 2022 1 min read

The charts below show that business activity plunged during August, according to the monthly survey of the Fed's NY district. It's a shocker. Here are the details: "Business activity declined sharply in New York State, according to firms responding to the August 2022 Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline general business conditions index plummeted forty-two points to -31.3. New orders and shipments plunged, and

Ed Yardeni

Plenty of Sunshine In Q3's GDPNow & July's CPI

Aug 10, 2022 1 min read paid

There's lots of sunshine in the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking model. Today's estimate shows that real GDP is rising at a 2.5% pace (saar) during Q3 (table). Consumer spending is tracking at 2.7%. It is looking like an up quarter for capital spending, government outlays, and exports so far. The downers, so far, are residential investment, imports, and the change in private

Ed Yardeni

Hooray: Inflation Cooled Off In July!

Aug 10, 2022 1 min read

July's headline and core CPI inflation rates were lower than expected at 0.0% and 0.3% (table below). The y/y rates were down to 8.5% and 5.9% below recent peaks of 9.1% (in June) and 6.5% in March). That's consistent with our view that inflation is peaking, but remains too high. So we expect that the Fed will hike the

Ed Yardeni

Mixed Inflation Indicators

Aug 9, 2022 1 min read

Today we learned that July's survey of small business owners showed that inflation might have peaked. On the other hand, there was no peak in today's productivity and unit labor costs report for Q2: (1) The small business owners survey found that 56% of them are raising prices, while 37.0% are planning to do so. Both are down from their peaks earlier this year. However,

Ed Yardeni

Lots of Jobs, But Inflation Eroding Wage Gains

Aug 5, 2022 1 min read paid

July's payroll employment in July blew past forecasts, and there were upward revisions to the prior two months, boosting payrolls back up to pre-pandemic levels and a new record high. The bad news is that the wage-price spiral is still spiraling and reducing the purchasing power of consumers:

Ed Yardeni

US Services Economy Continues To Grow

Aug 3, 2022 1 min read

The S&P 500 stock price index and the 10-year US Treasury bond yield are both up today following July's better-than-expected ISM nonmanufacturing purchasing managers index (NM-PMI). It edged up to 56.7 last month. Last week's S&P Global flash estimate suggested it would be weaker. Here's more: (1) The NM-PMI's new orders index was strong at 59.9.

Ed Yardeni

Less Helped Wanted

Aug 2, 2022 1 min read paid

There are still 1.8 open jobs per available worker. However, June's job openings dropped 605,000 to about 10.7 million, the fewest since September 2021. It was the sharpest decline since April 2020, when the economy was in the lockdown recession.

Ed Yardeni

No Recession In Truck Tonnage & Employment

Aug 1, 2022 1 min read

The trucking industry didn't get the recession memo yet. The ATA's For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index increased 2.7% in June after rising 0.3% in May. In June, the index equaled 120.1, rebounding almost back to its pre-pandemic record high. Trucking is a good coincident indicator of the economy, representing 72.5% of tonnage carried by all modes of domestic freight transportation, including manufactured and

Ed Yardeni

US Regional Business Slowing; Inflation Peaking

Jul 29, 2022 1 min read

July's national manufacturing purchasing managers index (M-PMI) will be released on Monday. Will investors cheer it? The regional business surveys conducted by five of the 12 Federal Reserve district banks suggest that the M-PMI should fall closer to 50.0 from June's 53.0 (chart below). The M-PMI's prices-paid index, which remained very high at 78.5, should also moderate somewhat, according to the

Ed Yardeni

It's A Banana!

Jul 28, 2022 1 min read

Real GDP fell 0.9% (saar) during Q2, following a 1.6% decline during Q1. That's a "growth recession" in our opinion. It is widely believed that two consecutive quarters of declining real GDP is an outright recession. However, it won't be an official recession until the Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research says so. They might not do so since

Ed Yardeni

No Recession In Today's GDP Indicators

Jul 27, 2022 1 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

Industry Analysts Shaving S&P 500 Earnings Estimates

Jul 25, 2022 1 min read

The industry analysts who cover the S&P 500 companies are starting to lower their earnings estimates for 2022 and 2023. Consider the following: (1) They haven't cut their estimates by much, so far, but enough to flatten S&P 500 forward earnings after it rose to a record high four weeks ago. (Forward earnings is the time-weighted average of analysts' consensus earnings estimates for

Ed Yardeni

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