December 4, 2023
GDP up, but GDO growing slower than GDP. Figure 1: GDP (bold black), GDO (tan), and final sales (green), all in billions Ch.2017$, SAAR. Source: BEA, 2023Q3 2nd release. GDP was revised up from 4.9% (q/q SAAR), while GDO grew 3.3%. GDO growth is slightly less than what I guessed a month ago (3.5%), partly
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I’ve wondered about what a “soft landing” entails, and whether we are are headed toward one. This is despite findings that, based on historical correlations, just about any term spread based regression will predict a recession by around mid-2024. Booker and Wessel discuss the issue of soft landings, and cite this table adapted from Blinder.
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From EIA: First, up to 2020: Source: EIA, accessed 11/26/2023. Then, 2021-2023, from the EIA Coal Update (July 2023): Source: EIA (July 2023). From the July report. …overall global coal demand is expected to remain flat at around 8 388 Mt (+0.4%) in 2023. Whether coal demand in 2023 grows or declines, will depend on
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Urals and Brent, as of today: Source: Tradingeconomics.com accessed 11/22/2023. Latest discount relative to Brent is approximately $17.75. Important? After all, Russia’s GDP has not taken much of a hit (of course, much of GDP is now devoted to war production so ex-military output growth in 2023 is negative 2% or less,). The oil price
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From Chicago Fed today: Figure 1: Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) (blue), and 3 month moving average (bold green). Source: Chicago Fed via FRED, author’s calculations. The three month moving average of the CFNAI dropped below 0 (i.e., dropped below trend growth) in October of last year. The notes for the CFNAI indicate “Following
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Industrial production is out, -0.6% m/m vs. consensus -0.3%. Here’s the picture of business cycle indicators followed by the NBER’s BCDC, along with SPGMI’s (nee Macroeconomic Advisers) monthly GDP: Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll employment incorporating preliminary benchmark (dark blue), civilian employment (orange), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2017$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales
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Headline CPI flat (below +0.1% consensus), and core CPI inflation at 0.2% (below +0.3% consensus). Here are some pictures of central tendency, trend: Figure 1: Headline CPI inflation, y/y (blue), core CPI inflation y/y (tan), trimmed mean CPI inflation m/m ann’d (tan), median CPI inflation m/m ann’d (pink), headline CPI instantaneous, T=12, a=4 per Eeckhout
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Atlanta Fed, NY Fed, and St. Louis Fed are for 2.1%, 2.51%, and 1.9%, SAAR respectively. Figure 1: GDP as reported (bold black), GDPNow of 11/8 (blue square), NY Fed nowcast as of 11/10 (green inverted triangle), St. Louis Fed news nowcast (brown triangle), WSJ survey mean (bold dark red), 20% trimmed low of WSJ
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So the world sometimes gets better. ShadowStats reports May CPI y/y inflation at above 7.5%. Source: ShadowStats, accessed 11/10/2023. Official CPI y/y inflation in May was 4.1%, research series (CPI chained) was 3.9%. Jim Hamilton on ShadowStats, in 2008, with rebuttal from Williams. Commenters on ShadowStats’ side: Blissex, W.C.Varones, Ricardo, ppcm, and Dave Cohen.
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EuroCoin in October indicates quarterly growth rate of -0.67 (q/q). The Q3 flash estimate for Euro Area GDP was -0.1%. Figure 1: Euro Area GDP growth rate (not AR) (red circle), and EuroCoin (blue line), both q/q (not AR). Source: Banca d’Italia. From CEPR release: In October, €-coin dropped significantly (to -0.67, from -0.18 in
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