This monitor is a reflection of how we update our assessments of economic growth in real-time as we get meaningful updates from macroeconomic data releases. It provides a more timely and meaningful gauge of economic activity growth than what GDP and similar summary indicators provide. Please see here for more details about how to interpret this information.
Summary: In terms of outright growth rates, the weakest parts of our activity dashboard are showing some positive acceleration now. Housing and manufacturing have been the most contractionary sectors, but increasingly less so with each passing month. Soft survey data has been more worrisome than the hard data but today's Philly Fed numbers was encouraging insofar as the most contractionary readings may now be behind us. And we're also seeing that after growing noticeably over the past year, "continuing jobless claims" are beginning to decline (this number is less affected by fraud issues than "initial jobless claims"). "Growing, slowing, stabilizing" is still the right description of the US economy for now.
The full version of this Activity Monitor is made available exclusively for our Premium Donors. To view the full version, sign up here for a 30-day free trial or contact us for more information.
