Ian Shepherdson
Ian Shepherdson
Ian Shepherdson is an award-winning British economist. He is the founder and Chief Economist of Pantheon Macroeconomics, an economic research firm located in Newcastle, England, with an office in White Plains, New York. In February 2015, he was named The Wall Street Journal's US economic forecaster of the year for the second time, having previously won the award in 2003...
aloud available beginning bigger committee elevated forecast growth guard headline inflation labor neutral pool position rate remain shifting sign slower tight
This is a sign that the committee is beginning to think aloud about shifting to a more neutral position - but the forecast of significantly slower growth will have to come first, ... For now, the elevated headline inflation rate and the tight pool of available labor remain bigger concerns, so the Fed's guard is still up.
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It would be very helpful if the drop in confidence in June marked the start of a new trend, but with the job market still very tight we cannot yet be confident about this.
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The mystery is how to square with this with both the Redbook and Bloomberg chain store sales surveys, which pointed to a huge gain, ... Maybe it will come in March, or today's numbers will be revised up. Either way, this is a brief diversion, not a change of course.
auto chicago couple dip follow indicator january less mean movements national past reliable result volatile
The Chicago PMI has been very volatile over the past couple of years, probably as a result of the tribulations of the auto industry. As a result it has become a less reliable indicator of movements in the national ISM and the January dip does not necessarily mean the ISM will follow suit.
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The improvement in the stock market is allowing the hugely favorable monetary and fiscal environment to do its work -- just as it was in the spring before the stock market melted down,
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There may be some adverse seasonal effects at work in the claims numbers, thanks to the late Easter, but the underlying trend is surely unfavorable, ... A reversal requires a quick and steep recovery in business confidence.
claims lower signal strong
For now, claims signal strong payrolls and a lower unemployment rate.
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If claims remain at their current level, we could expect the unemployment rate to be down to 4 percent or so by mid-summer.
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The Fed can and will be much more of an active player in the stock market until it turns the corner,
labor market progress
Overall, the labor market is improving, but progress is still slow,
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Ignore the ISM at your peril, ... Assuming this report is not a fluke - everything we look at suggests it is very real - it is consistent with year-over-year GDP growth accelerating to 4 percent by the summer.
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The Fed's chief worry is still the labor market, ... So long as the unemployment rate does not fall further, and clear signs of consumer slowed own emerge, the Fed will be able to leave rates on hold.
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Just about everyone who buys a house uses a mortgage, so a sustained drop in mortgage demand tells you where home sales are going, regardless of the current sales data.
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The trend in sales is probably not as weak as this seems to suggest, but there is no question that the condo/co-op market is slowing much more dramatically than the market for single-family homes. Even in the latter case, however, sales have fallen more than 10% from their summer peak.