Posted on 04/04/2014 4:36:57 PM PDT by blam
The State Of The Big Four Recession Indicators
Doug Short, Advisor Perspectives
April 4, 2014, 6:25 PM
Note from dshort: This commentary has been revised to include today's release of the March Nonfarm Employment data.
Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. This committee statement is about as close as they get to identifying their method.
There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee weighs heavily in their cycle identification process. They are:
Industrial Production
Real Personal Income (excluding transfer payments)
Nonfarm Employment
Real Retail Sales (a timelier substitute for Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales)
The Latest Indicator Data
Today's release of the March employment data showed an increase of 192K new nonfarm jobs, which was a bit below most economists' expectations (e.g., the Bloomberg survey of economists had a median of 200K), but not enough to prove worrisome. The unemployment rate remained steady at 6.7%. The month-over-month percent change in Nonfarm Employment is 0.14% and 1.66% year-over-year.
Today's key employment number is consistent with the slow but consistent growth we've seen over the past few years. On a monthly basis, the YoY percent change has hovered in a narrow range of 1.48% to 1.88% since September of 2011.
The chart and table below illustrate the performance of the Big Four and a simple average of the four since the end of the Great Recession. The data points show the cumulative percent change from a zero starting point for June 2009. The latest data point is the first for the 56th month.
Current Assessment and Outlook
(snip)
(Click to the site for many more charts)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The DJIA closed down 159.84 today
Dr Copper
Excrement occurs :{) and then you die. But seriously, it is a good time to be old.
Are we in really big trouble and just don’t know it ..??
It’s known.
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