A surprisingly robust July jobs report provides evidence of continued economic strength. The historically low unemployment rate will likely allay Fed concerns about a downturn, heighten concerns about inflation, and lead to more significant tightening ahead.
Is inflation going to prove transitory? Global commodity prices were boosted in part by disruptions caused by the conflict in Ukraine and contributed to the surge in consumer prices. Most commodity prices are now well below their recent peaks either due to global supply chain…
While the economy appears to be contracting and retailers worry about increased inventories, the job market in May and June continued to show strength. These hot and cold conflicting signals about the economy are highly unusual.
What is the state of international trade? Will demand for goods remain robust? Have inventories been refilled yet? Are logistics bottlenecks clearing? In the June 2022 State of Trade webinar we identified many signs of negative pressure though a downturn has yet to get fully…
While May personal income and outlays figures showed drops in both real disposable income and personal consumption expenditures, we’ve largely seen a stabilization in these figures in recent months. The significant drops were from post-recession spikes and the current levels of…
This report reviews data from third-party countries to assess the impact of sanctions on Russian trade and finds that Russia’s trade with the EU, China and the U.S. fell by 13% sequentially in April vs. March and by 4% sequentially. Looking ahead the transformation of global…
This report gathers over a decade of data on corporate inventory to sales ratios from over 1,400 companies. We find that inventories in Q1’22 climbed by 13% year over year while sales rose by just 6%. There are at least six different reasons for that disparity, ranging from…
By multiple measures, the U.S. labor market looks about as strong as it has for twenty years. A key question is whether that will spur even more inflation. If so, the May jobs report did not pick that up.