Economics Update (For the Week)

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Yes, it does appear that the seasonal adjustment for the week after Christmas is whack

The lede for the week is obviously that first time unemployment claims fell to the lowest level in 17 months, down 22K to 432K, though, as Brad Delong notes, this is likely because of problems with the seasonal adjustment for this week. (See graph pr0n).

Continuing claims, as well as the 4 week average fell too, but emergency claims, for people (like me shortly) who exhausted their regular benefits (i.e. out of work more than 6 months), rose sharply, by 199 thousand to 4.82 million, a 4.1% jump in one week. (!)

Earlier this week, the Institute for Supply Management released its Chicago index, aka the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), and it unexpectedly jumped to 60 in December from 56.1 in November………Only they just revised it, and oops, it the PMI was only 58.7, largely on a downward revision on employment…………Happy, happy, joy, joy.

That's not to say that the numbers aren't better, they are better, much like the ATA Truck Tonnage Index November numbers, and the ShopperTrak year over year retail sales for last week, though the latter saw a drop in traffic.

In real estate, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to a 4 month high, 5.14%, which is still at a level which is historically low, and the recent uptick in housing prices seems to have petered out, with the Case-Shiller index showing flat prices in October, following 4 straight months of price increases.

This is unsurprising, as home price subsidy new home buyer tax credit was supposed to end in November, and homes needed to close by November 30, which meant that there were a lot of sellers who knew that they had to move their houses quickly, or not at all.

Houses are still well above trend, both in terms of rent to own price to income ratio, though you still have claims that housing affordability is better than the historical numbers, because the mortgage rates are still incredibly (see above) low.

If rates return to their historical levels, about 9% for the 30-year fixed, we have a downward pressure on house prices of roughly 1/3, because people buy houses on monthly payment, not price.

We do have some good international news, with South Korean exports rising rapidly, and Chinese manufacturing growing at a 20-month high, though I wonder how much of the latter is the result of provincial bureaucrats goosing the numbers, or encouraging local industries to over produce, in order to score brownie points with Beijing.