Economy

Remember the debates about structural unemployment back during the beginning of this recovery. The question was whether policymakers would write off a whole cadre of workers as ‘unemployable’ and formulate policy as if they weren’t…

Claims data are still consistent with an economy adding 200,000 per month, meaning we should expect a snap back from last month’s low figure when the US jobs numbers are released tomorrow.

From an economic perspective, the coming slowdown in production will dent GDP growth.

With demand for long-dated safe assets high, the yield curve will remain under flattening pressure. And that, combined with higher short-term rates will be negative for bank net interest margins and earnings.

The 98,000 jobs added to payrolls in the US in March were well below the consensus estimate of 178,000, especially when you consider downward revisions to January and February totalled 38,000. I don’t believe this matters for the Fed…

The consensus for the March jobs report is for an addition of 178,000 jobs. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 4.7%. Other data show the risk is to the upside here.

I think I have the answer to at least one question: why was the Fed talking to big money investors in the first place. My thoughts follow below.

US auto sales have been down persistently on a year-over-year basis during the past several months. March was no different, according to figures released today.

I have heard some people dismiss jobless claims as a data series for two distinct reasons that I want to flag given my view that claims data matter.

We are now three months into 2017 and we can look back on 2016 as a fairly good year economically for the US. So given that backdrop, was it right to worry about a recession in 2016? And what does that say about 2017? Here’s my view below.