US The Federal Reserve Chair Powell made a strong case for additional fiscal support in a speech last week. He noted that despite the rebound seen so far, the economy is still in a precarious state. Any slowing in the pace of recovery at this stage risks triggering “typical recessionary dynamics, as weakness feeds on [...]
US The release of employment data for the month of September showed ongoing, albeit decelerating progress in the labor market recovery. Indeed, 661,000 payroll jobs were added last month, down from 1.5 million in August. Overall, 51.5% of non-farm payrolls lost since the pandemic began have been recovered. The unemployment rate fell from 8.4% to [...]
US Existing home sales rose by 2.4% in August to 6.0 million units (annualized), which marked another post-Great Recession record. The improvement spanned both single and multi-family segments and all four Census regions, though gains in the latter were concentrated in Northeast (13.8%). Meanwhile, in part due to a low inventory backdrop, home price growth [...]
US The Federal Reserve indicated that there will be no interest rate increase until at least end of 2023 and will not tighten policy until inflation is higher than 2% for “some time”, a move away from its previous policy goal of “maximum employment” and “symmetric 2% inflation”. This announcement makes the Fed’s desire to [...]
US Economists are revising higher their expectations for US growth in the year's third quarter. Goldman Sachs recently upped its Q3 forecast to a 35.0% annual rate while Bank of America revised its view up to 27.0%. Strong consumer spending and the rebuilding of depleted inventories are the main drivers in the positive outlook. The [...]
US As largely expected, the American economy continued to churn out jobs last month, albeit at a slower rate than in June and July. Indeed, August saw a total of 1.4 million net new jobs added, down from 1.7 million in July. Overall, nonfarm employment is about 7.6% below where it was in February. The [...]
US The Federal Reserve has decided a chance of tack is necessary. Nothing too revolutionary of course, but a recognition that it should be more concerned with employment undershooting its goal than outperforming it. At the same time, having consistently over-predicted the future path of inflation over the past decade, it has come to the [...]
US Both housing starts and existing home sales trounced market forecasts in July, rising by 22.6% and 24.7% month-on-month, respectfully. Starts are now just 7.0% below their pre-pandemic peak (January), while existing home sales are 8.0% above January levels. The housing market has been a bright spot for the US economy during this pandemic. Record-low [...]
US Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rebounded more sharply than expected. Core inflation rose 0.6% month-over-month, the largest jump since 1991. The move was largely due to price hikes in areas that had seen significant discounting earlier in the pandemic, like motor vehicle insurance and airline fares. The acceleration in price growth [...]
US The manufacturing recovery picked up momentum during the month, with the ISM index rising to 54.2. Underlying details of the manufacturing report paint a brighter picture than previous months as well. The service sector was widely expected to weaken in July amid the flare-up of new cases, but the rebranded ISM Services (formerly called [...]
